Prayer

Have you ever wondered if people really pray for you if you ask them to?  Do you ever pray for people when they ask you to?  I know I don't expect others to pray for me when I ask them to, or I may expect them to pray later but never right away.  I was surprised a while ago when I asked for prayer and the person I asked stopped right where they were to pray for me.  Why was I surprised?  Why do we not expect people to pray for us?  Don't we serve a God Who can do anything and yet we don't expect people to respond when we ask them to pray?  

OK, now that I have got you thinking (I hope) let me ask you something; if this is what other Christians expect from us shouldn't we be changing those expectations as fast as we can?  Shouldn't we be showing others that we believe that God will help them, maybe not by taking the problem away but it one way or another, but we aren't; we aren't praying immediately when someone asks us.  I know we all live crazy busy lives but we all still have twenty-four hours in each day, we all have time to take those few seconds and pray with someone.  There are people struggling in the church who will and do ask for prayer but do we pray?  Those struggling people will not want to serve a God Whose people won't stop in the middle of their busy day to pray for them, they won't want to fellowship with these liars who say they will do something and then they totally ignore the request and move on with their busy schedule.  I know you may feel very uncomfortable praying out-loud with someone but it doesn't have to be a huge super-spiritual thing, you just have to take the time to pray with this person. Prayer is talking to God; this person who has asked you to pray wants you to bring this request or situation to God.

One other thing I would like you to realize is that this person may be testing you as a Christian to see if you will really pray for them, if you will really take some of your precious time to pray for them. You will most likely not be able to tell if the person is testing you or not but you should still respond to this person just as you would any other person, you should stop right where you are and pray. When you pray with this person just right where you are they will see that God's people really care, that God really cares, but if you just brush them off and say that you will pray for them later but you will remember them in your prayers, this person will think that Christians are just a bunch of liars even if we do remember the person in our prayers they won't see it so they will see you as a liar.  We will know that we prayed for them but they won't, they won't believe in a loving God if this God's people aren't praying for others. 

I guess what I am trying to get through to ya'll is that we need to pray, not just by ourselves in our own separate time, but any time that others bring forward a request.  And never forget that nothing is too small for God, no matter what the request is it is worth praying for.  Please, please show people God's love through prayer, it is God's job to love, and it is God's peopleʼs job to show this love.

[h/t: Intern Missius]