I saw this meme the other day and it made me laugh — because honestly don’t we all want someone to think and pray for us!
Now, hopefully no one is praying for your down fall (although I do think sometimes my future husband is praying for me to stay single until we meet and MAN are his prayers working!). In our society - especially in the Christian Bubble that I’m in - it’s common to tell someone that you’ll pray for them! Whether it’s job interviews, health crises, or big decisions… we send a quick text with praying for you! 🙏🙏🙏 Global disasters strike and everyone’s quick to post our thoughts and prayers are with you! Ts and Ps! But what would it look like to REALLY pray for others.
On a Wednesday night in the summer of 2021, I had a huge mind shift in this area. I was sitting on the rocking chairs by the ranch house while avoiding my 15th foam rave of the summer, and one of my old bosses who was in the canyon visiting came down to sit next to me. She had moved to the East Coast and we hadn’t seen in each other in a few years and spent awhile catching up. There’s no where easier to be vulnerable than the Laity Lodge Canyon and there’s no time for me to be more vulnerable than after having been on a sixteen hour shift - so she caught me at a good time — I was open, honest, and had shared some of the deepest desires of my heart. She listened in a way that felt encouraging and then said I’ll pray for you! Now that’s where those type of convos usually end, but not that night!
She proceeded, right then and there in that moment to pray for me. Nothing flowery or words that changed anything — but she went to the throne of God on my behalf. After saying Amen, she opened up her phone, went into her alarms, and put an alarm with my name on it to repeat every Wednesday night. She told me that she would pray for me every Wednesday when this alarm went off until this prayer was answered.
Now, I have no idea if she did or has continued to pray every Wednesday since we are still waiting on an answer… but I have never been more touched when someone told me they’d pray for me. It felt tangible. I believed her. It was more than just what someone says.
And so I started to do it too. I have a variety of alarms that go off throughout the week to pray for friends and family. The alarm goes off, points me to pray, and I have the privilege to say a quick prayer. A three second prayer is better than nothing! I know our lives are busy and hectic — but what a gift it is to go to the Lord and interceded. How lucky are we that we have the Holy Spirit who does it for us (without an alarm!).
It helps when your friends have very clear requests — clear scans, a new job, a restored relationship, delivery of a healthy baby… but sometimes there are prayers that are too deep to even be spoken aloud and we find it hard to know what to pray. Or even in times (like with the fires in California) when you don’t even know someone or their needs but want to pray. I’ve included some lines below that I say and I hope you use next time you say you’ll pray for someone but don’t know what to pray!! I hope they are a help, and I hope that in 2025 we can be a praying people!