I Will Think Fondly of You

“I’ll pray for you. ”

I said the words to a friend the other day and they caught in my throat about halfway out. My relationship with God was damaged a while ago and I’m still healing. One of the main things that has yet to get back to usual is my prayer life. Right now it is sporadic, short, and far smaller than it used to be or should be. So, when I started to tell my friend that I would pray from him I had to ask myself. Would I? Because in all honesty the likely hood of my remembering to actually pray, and then on top of that to talk to God about his needs, were slim. But then the other question that came to my mind was if it even mattered?

People ask for prayer all the time. People of faith. People at the end of their rope. People who believe in the power of prayer. People who are just saying it to say something pleasant. But, when I say I will pray for someone, do I mean that I will actually pray for them or their situation? Or do I simply mean that I will think of their situation and hope for the best?

What does prayer even do? Why do we need to pray? What good is prayer if God is just going to do his own thing anyway? I’ve asked these questions before and talked with people about them several times. And the honest truth is that I don’t have a great answer. I have no idea why God wants us to pray when He already knows that will happen and what we are going to ask for. I don’t know why I should pray if bad things are going to happen despite my prayers. I also don’t get why I should ask a bunch of people to pray for me, rather than pray for myself. Is God running some sort of prayer petition and only responds if we get over 100,000 prayer signatures? What is the point?

Despite not having those answer, I think prayer is important. Much like when I was in the habit of working out, when I was in the habit of praying regularly, I could tell the difference – in myself, in my faith, in how I say the world. I don’t want you to just take my personal, subjective, experience on it though. So here are some examples on why I think we should take prayer seriously.

• The Example of Samuel – Samuel was a leader of the people of Israel back in the old Testament. He guided the people, led them, taught them, and took care of them his whole life. At the end, however, the people said he wasn’t good enough. They demanded a king to replace him. As he is accepting this, basically resigning from office, he says this, “²³ Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you…” (1 Samuel 12:23). See Samuel thought prayer was so important that he considered it a sin, missing the mark of what was actually right, to not pray for the people. He thought so strongly that he prayers did something that to not pray was, to him, a disservice to his people. How crazy would it be if we thought we were being a bad coworker, friend, brother, or sister, if we were forgetting to pray for these people regularly?

 

• Paul, a leader of the New Testament church this time, was writing a letter to a newer church and as he was wrapping up with some general thoughts on life he encouraged them to “¹⁷ pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). According to him we should be constantly talking to God. In a way that makes a lot of sense. Not that God is telling us that the blueberry muffin for breakfast is a sin, but the chocolate chip one is his good and perfect will (although …chocolate…). Anyway. I think Paul meant that if we are constantly listening to God and talking to him maybe we would be more conscious about our actions and if they were in line with His will. And also, it leaves us open to God telling us when maybe we should show a little extra compassion, really ask a coworker if things are okay. Maybe if we were constnaly in communication God’s will would be done a little more.

 

• And finally, Jesus prayed. God, when He was here, took the time to pray. I’m not going to get into why He did or how that exactly worked. I don’t know how His humanity/Godhood mixed so I don’t know if this was an example, or necessary. I think it was necessary for him even, but regardless it was a picture for us. He got up and went away from people to pray (Luke 5:16) . He took time out of his morning for it (Mark 1:35). When things got bad- like he knew he was about to be captured and beaten and executed bad- he got his friends together and he prayed (Matthew 26:36-46). Again, it wasn’t just sending up the good feels into the world. When he came back down and found his friends sleeping instead of praying for him, he yelled at them. Because in his eyes prayer did something.

My wife and I are reading this prayer book together. “Reading”. To be honest we are really bad at taking the time to actually do even that. But what we have read has been really interesting. One thing the author talked about was treating prayer like a conversation, like someone was actually on the other side. Praying because we need to talk to God to grow our relationship with him, much like we would our spouse or friend.

I don’t know how prayer works. I have had a lot of prayers unanswered, big prayers, little prayers. I don’t get why that is. I don’t know why God, who sees everything and knows everything, needs us to ask for things or talk to him about stuff. I don’t know if or why praying with several people is more effective that praying by yourself.

What I do know is that prayer matters. God loves us, and He has told us this is how we talk to him, how He talks to us, how we get His attention. He has told us that if we ask He will give, and that He loves to give us good gifts. I know that He is near and listening. So, if you ask me to pray for you, know that when I say yes, I am not saying I will think fondly of you, but I will pray for you. I will ask the God of the universe for this thing, on your behalf. And I don’t know how or why prayer works. God didn’t see fit to give me those answers. He just told me to do it.