“how can I pray for you?”
I don’t know if you guys do this, but I do it all the time.
me: “So, how can I pray for you?”
brother/sister: “_______”
me: “Alright, awesome. Hey, thanks for sharing; I’ll pray for you. In fact, I’ll write it down so I don’t forget. In fact, I’m so great, I’ll pray for you right now.”
number of times I actually pray for the person: 0
And this isn’t confined to the holy and hallowed realm of one-on-one meetups. It happens in small group sharing sessions. It happens at prayer meetings. It happens at Friday night fellowship. Week after week, we share prayer requests; how many of us have actually been consistently praying?
And when we do pray, how often is it as running through a checklist? We make sure to get them down on Post-Its, so that we don’t forget—and, perhaps, so that we can tell people that we’ve been praying for them.
Now, writing down prayer requests is not necessarily wrong. Nor is informing people that you’ve been praying for them (Paul did it). In fact, the people who are listening to prayer requests, carrying around index cards to write them down, and seeking to encourage others are a) much further along than this writer and b) to be affirmed. Praise God.
So consider this a reminder (to myself, primarily), not a rebuke. We’ve got to get back to the issue of the heart. Several problems—problems more profound than immediately apparent—can arise when it comes to praying for others.
-We have deficient views of God’s sovereignty. It might be easy for us to quickly blurt out that God is sovereign over our grades, because we get to practice every single day. But do we believe that he, alone, is sovereign regarding the salvation of our non-Christian friends? Over the pride and chronic sins blinding our brothers and sisters? Do we believe that in him all things hold together? We are not nearly as desperate as we ought to be.
-We do not believe that he will lovingly answer. Maybe it’s because we’ve heard so much nonsense (or what we deem to be nonsense) about God passing out visions and miracles like candy in response to prayers. For whatever reason, we doubt that he will provide actual, tangible response. For his glory, in his timing, according to his perfect purpose, in our best interests, and in some fashion, he will answer.
-We lack in love for others. We are so focused on our own needs—even if they are “holy” needs—that it should be of no surprise that we find it difficult to pray for others.
This can also include so desperately wanting to encourage people that we pray for the sake of telling them that we can tell them we’ve been praying for them. But we lack love and humility when we do that, as well. We refuse to surrender to the sovereign and take matters into our own hands when we do that. Only God can effect change, and we must never believe that the power belongs to us.
I’m sure there are more. But in any case, let’s try to remember that truly loving others is God-centered. And let’s not take prayer casually. And let’s pray without ceasing—not as people going through the motions, but with the understanding that
for the saints, the Holy Spirit intercedes, and the God of the universe is listening.
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