Praying for you
Lately I’ve pondering how often we Christians say things that we don’t really mean. Living mostly America, I’m often greeted with the much-worn phrase, ‘How are you doing?’ When first encountering this enquiry, I thought that the person actually wanted to know how I was doing. I was tempted to give a comprehensive response, even sharing the results of my recent annual physical. I didn’t know that a standard reply was expected.
I’m fine.
And then a conversational tidbit much exchanged between believers is the promise that we make when we hear that someone is not fine. ‘I’m praying for you’, we pledge. But then we move on, and in the blur of life, we totally forget. It’s especially awkward when someone that we’ve promised to pray for comes back a few days later, reports that God has wonderfully answered prayer and thanks us for our fervent intercessions. ‘I’m sure your prayers helped’, they gush. Oops.
Personally, I have been poor at asking others to pray for me. This is partly due to my thinking that my troubles are tiny in comparison to what others are enduring. But that’s misguided, because pain is not comparable or measurable. A six year old may be distraught at not being able to find Benny, their beloved teddy bear, and won’t be comforted by the news that there are more pressing concerns about war and global warming. They just want Benny.
And then there’s the mystery that is prayer. When Doris gets the flu and the call goes out to mobilise as many people as possible to pray, it can feel like we are signing a petition to convince God that He really ought to do something. That feels like a metaphorical arm twisting, with God sometimes lamenting to the angels: “Sorry, everyone. We’ve only had 420 souls offer a prayer. We need 500 minimum if we’re to help Doris. She’ll have to sniffle on….’
Of course, that notion is ridiculous. The reality is that God invites us into partnership with Him in what He is doing in the earth. Shared prayer is not only a beautiful privilege, but a vital responsibility.
The apostle Paul repeatedly asked his friends to pray for him, that he would be fearless and choose the right, relevant words as he shared the gospel.1 And then Jesus, knowing that his dear friend Peter would be walking a tough pathway, shared a warning and a promise: ‘Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail’.2
Irina Ratushinskaya, raised in cold war, atheistic Russia, came to Christ through her experience of the snow and reading Russian classics. She did not see a Bible until she was 23 years old, but through the writings of Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Turgenev, and Tolstoy, she met Jesus. As a Christian poet, she was tagged an enemy of the state, and sentenced to seven years hard labor and seven years internal exile and sent to Barashevo camp in Mordavia, in the Soviet’s notorious Gulag. After her release, she found that thousands of Christians worldwide had been praying for her, and related the effects of those prayers in her book, Pencil Letter:
Believe me, it was often thus
In solitary cells, on winter nights
A sudden sense of joy and warmth
And a resounding note of love.
And then, unsleeping, I would know
A-huddle by an icy wall:
Someone is thinking of me now,
Petitioning the Lord for me.
My dear ones, thank you all
Who did not falter, who believed in us!
In the most fearful prison hour
We probably would not have passed
Through everything-from end to end,
Our heads held high, unbowed –
Without your valiant hearts to light our path.
Walking through some serious challenges recently, I awoke the other day with a sense of irrational joy. The torment of a restless, anxious night was suddenly gone, and I instinctively knew that someone, somewhere was praying for me. Later that day I received an email that confirmed the thought: a friend had felt burdened to stand with me in prayer that morning.
So let’s make prayer shared and requested our practice in 2024. And for this I pray for you…..honestly! Have a happy, blessed and peaceful day!
1 (Eph 6:19,20, Col 4:4, 2 Thess 3:1)
2 (Luke 22:31-32)