For a long time whenever I told someone I’d pray for them, it felt like a cop out. When I had nothing else to offer in the way of physical or material help I knew I could offer to pray. But it felt like doing nothing.
Prayer is in fact the best and strongest tool at our disposal. It is in prayer that we can see more clearly how and when we should act. Click To TweetPraying for someone is never doing nothing. It is doing the first and best thing so that we can better know how to move forward. But I’m also guilty of telling someone I’ll pray for them, and then not actually doing it. It’s one of those phrases tossed around socially that can lose all meaning if we aren’t careful. It’s like saying having a nice day. You may or may not mean it, but we still say it all the time.
I try to make it a point of praying for someone as soon as and as often as I think of him or her. My friend calls these arrow prayers or mom prayers. They are quick and short and you kind of throw them up to God as you are able throughout the day.
I have friends who journal their prayers. It makes it easier to go back and look for God’s answers, as well as be sure you actually remembered to pray. Others find it help to pray regularly with someone else, a spouse or prayer partner. Building a healthy prayer life is a whole other topic on it’s own, but it also has an influence in how we extend generosity.
Being willing to make a concentrated effort to beseech God on someone’s behalf is still a form of generosity because it still takes time and effort. Yet it is something we can freely give because we will never run out. Click To TweetI don’t claim to understand exactly how prayer works all the time. I take great comfort in the words of Thomas Merton.
“We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners, all our life!”
But I know it has benefits both to those being prayed for and those doing the praying. Like so much of what God calls us to do, especially in the area of generosity, we are being changed and developed by way of our giving to others.
Next – Believe the Best First: Giving Strangers the Benefit of Our Good Opinion
THIS: “Praying for someone is never doing nothing. It is doing the first and best thing so that we can better know how to move forward.”