Praying for Others

I Timothy 2:1

“First of all, then, I urge that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made in behalf of all people….”

I shared the following spiritual insight during our Ladies Prayer Time on Wednesday night.  I wish I could say I wrote it, but I didn’t.  I don’t know the person who did, but it sure is wise words and I believe inspired by God.  For all of you that pray, this is for you!

When you carry someone to God, you’re loving them past your limitations. You’re admitting you don’t have the power to prevent every hurt, predict every turn, or solve every problem. And instead of pretending you can, you entrust them to the One who never loses sight of them.

Intercession goes further than advice. It reaches the hours you never see. It covers the car rides, the quiet rooms, the conversations they don’t tell you about. It speaks for them when you do not know what to say, and it speaks for you when your heart is tired from trying.

Don’t wait for the emergency to pray. Pray when things are steady. Pray when they are laughing. Pray over their choices, their emotions, their friendships, their work, their mind, their faith. Pray when you feel peace and when you feel the knot of concern. Because prayer is not a panic button. It is love staying awake.

Sometimes love looks like listening with no agenda. Sometimes it looks like showing up with a meal and a hug. And sometimes love looks like stepping out of the way, refusing to grip the steering wheel, and asking God to lead them better than you ever could.

Ask Him to guard what you can’t guard. Ask Him to give wisdom where you can’t teach it. Ask Him to calm storms you can’t calm and to heal wounds you can’t touch. Not to control their story, but to cover their story.

And while you pray for them, something happens in you. Your fear loosens. Your frustration softens. Your need to manage every outcome starts to fade. You remember you were never assigned the job of being their savior. You were called to love them well.

So, whisper their names to Heaven. The ones in your home, the ones across town, the ones you miss, the ones who are hard to understand right now. Lift them up with steady faith.

There is no stronger way to love them – than to pray.

- Dawn & Someone Unknown