Over the past several weeks and months I have been thinking a lot about prayer. I have several prayer warriors in my life who seem to have a direct line to the Lord, and I have always admired them for this superhero-like power.
As I was thinking how amazing it would be to accomplish so much with my prayer, I became convicted. I realized that I have been taking for granted what a privilege and unique opportunity prayer is.
So I took action. I talked about my feelings and how I needed to make a change in this area of my life to a group of close friends. From there, I began actively looking for opportunities to pray as I go about my day.
Sometimes I will admit, prior to my little revelation, I got bored with prayer. I felt like I was praying for the same things over and over, and if I am annoyed with how similar my prayers were, I should spare the Lord. I was wrong!
However, to add variety to what I was praying, I reached out to the largest and most easily accessible audience I know — Facebook. I felt that maybe I had become stagnant because I grew tired of praying for myself. Looking towards others and praying for the things they voiced was incredibly edifying.
I made a simple post asking how I could pray for anyone. I will admit, I was surprised by the response. People with whom I haven’t spoken in years responded asking for peace, strength, healing, etc. I see these people post often about their lives, and it hadn’t occurred to me once to stop and say a quick prayer for them and then go about my day.
One thing I had told myself in the past is that prayers need to be well thought-out and organized, and a specific time needs to be set aside to do it. Of course, I know this isn’t how prayer has to be, but that is how I have done it most of my life, with casual prayer sprinkled in between, like while competing in a sporting event or before a test.
But I found that when I chose to keep prayer on my mind and by getting literal notifications on Facebook of prayer requests, stopping immediately to say a prayer was one way I could help those around me.
I have been challenging myself to look beyond me and my inner circle and think about how others’ lives are going. This is one way I’ve been able to do that. It has removed a film from my eyes, whereas before I was looking at others as just people, and now they are my fellow conquerors and co-heirs of Christ.
I challenge you, when you tell someone that you will pray for them, stop that moment and do it. I am guilty of throwing this phrase out flippantly in the past.
A friend of mine recently asked the question: Who are we to flippantly reference the reverence and holiness of prayer and then not come through and fulfill our promise? Is that not disrespecting and taking advantage of the holy and unique relationship we have with our Creator through prayer?
People need to be loved; they need to know they are loved and cared for, not only by their Creator but by people here on earth. Offer to pray with someone when they voice a trying time their going through. Right then and there, just do it!
Praying for someone is one of the kindest and considerate things you can do for someone, and it gives you an opportunity to talk to the Lord. Take full advantage of this gift He has given us brothers and sisters!