Gratitude Day 587

James 5:16 –For this reason, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous person is powerful in what it can achieve.

The words may roll right off of our tongue without use even really knowing it. Realizing it. Acknowledging it.

“I’ll pray for you.”

When we tell this to someone, most of the time, I do believe we have good intentions. We really do plan to pray for this person. Lift them up to God. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don’t.

Or maybe I should say, sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t.

We do it on social media. Someone expresses a challenging situation or experience they are going through right now. My standard answer is this: Hugs and prayers. It’s a virtual hug right now because, well, we’re still not really hugging yet. And the prayers part? I hope I am.

I know that when I tell someone that I’m going to pray for them, it’s a promise. You can count on me, I’m telling them. I’ll be praying for you.

It sounds good in the moment. I have the right intentions. It’s my follow through that sucks.

Sometimes I do pray for them. Sometimes I don’t.

At minimum, I pray for them in the moment that I say I will pray for them. Just a quick, couple sentence prayer that isn’t too complicated. Just a “By the way, God? So, and so needs a bit of your attention right now. Can you squeeze it in?”

Of course, God can squeeze it in. God is the master of squeezing everything in, even though God has only about a bazillion things going at the same time. God ALWAYS has time.

How about us? Hmmm.

Today’s Lenten observance is to pray for those people you want to pray for, feel you should pray for, said you would pray for and who you know need your prayers. It might be helpful to make an actual list of the people you want to pray for. Or not.

Here’s who you can pray for. As you read each line, make a list of who you want to pray for:

Those who need physical healing.

(Pause. Write your list OR simply pray for everyone you know who needs physical healing.)

Those who need spiritual healing.

(Again, pause. Knock out a list of those who are struggling spiritually.)

Those who need emotional healing.

(Take your time. Try not to rush. Intentionally give yourself more time to create your list.)

Finally, those who need mental healing.

(You know the drill. Capture those people who need some extra love.)

Sometimes, we may think someone else doesn’t need our prayers. I would disagree. They need our prayers … and we need to pray for them. There are benefits both ways. A person can feel surrounded by the prayers being said in her or his name. This can bring great comfort and peace. The benefit for us? Drawing us out of ourselves and being able to help another human being. Loosing our own problems for a hot minute so we can see there are others around us who are struggling as well.

Jim and Karen have prayed for Hubby Rick and I for decades. Literally decades. They began praying for us before we were married. They continue to pray for us EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. We don’t get to see them very often. It’s been way too many months since we last saw them. (Thank you, COVID-19.) But here’s the deal. Every time we see them, Jim reminds us that we are on their prayer list. They are not aware of what we need today. Or what challenge is distracting us. Jim and Karen don’t need to know all of those details. They just need to be praying for us.

And they do.

EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

It really is comforting to know that someone is praying for you daily. I know this is true … because I know Jim and Karen pray for us daily.

You may not feel or be able to pray for a list of people every day. This is OK. But maybe you could commit to pray for them once a week. For their benefit. For your benefit. As a reminder that this is what the community of God does for each other. We pray.

Today, I’m going to pray for every person who reads Simple Words of Faith. Whether I specifically know your name or not, it doesn’t matter. Or at least I don’t think it does. If you have something specific that I can pray for you today, please let me know. I would love to know how I can specifically pray for you and your family.

For the knowledge that others pray for me, I am grateful.

Blessings –

Dianne

Holy God – So often, we find ourselves in situations where we don’t know what to do. Or how to fix something. We say something like, “Well, we can always pray,” almost as a half-hearted thought. May we see prayer as THE most important thing we can do. Place in our hearts the desire to be a prayer warrior for others around us. Amen.

Stop by diannedeatonvielhuber on Instagram today for a few more thoughts about today’s Lenten topic.

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