Pray for Each Other - Learning from Others

“A Widening Circle” –Philip Yancy, Prayer: Does it make a difference?

“When I study the prayers of the apostle Paul, I see clearly the widening circle of God’s love. Paul prays constantly, night and day, for his fellow worker Timothy and often mentions other individuals by name. He prays for a slave owner, Philemon, even as he presses for the slave’s release. He prays for close friends, yes, but also offers passionate prayers for churches he has visited and even some, like Rome and Colossae, he has not. He prays for an entire race, his fellow Jews who cannot accept Jesus as Messiah.

I think about parallels in my own life twenty centuries later. I hear a report on AIDS in Africa. Better yet, I visit Africa on a writing assignment and see in person the abandoned babies with stick-figure limbs and orangeish hair lying motionless in bed, and hear in accented English the stories of women infected by their adulterous husbands and now ostracized from the community. That night I pray for the faces I have seen, and they become not just faces but fellow human beings who have fallen victim to evil on this planet. As I pray, their pain becomes mine, and I bring their plight before God. I search my soul for ways in which I, one person who lives an ocean away, can convey God’s own love and concern for them. Who might best embody that love, and how can I help?

Or, closer to home, I hear that a friend of mine in another city is consulting a divorce lawyer. I know the circumstances well enough to know that no physical abuse or adultery is involved, just two people who have grown weary of the hard work of marriage. I bring the two, husband and wife, before God. All too easily I jump in with my own strong ideas of what should happen and pray for that result, but this time I confess I do not know all the facts. I hold out my hands, cupped in an open position, and present the couple to God. I try to imagine what healing would encompass: many tears, perhaps counseling, exposed secrets, the slow wash of forgiveness. I ask for that, and ask what role I can play as their friend. Aware that the marriage may have fractured beyond repair, I pray for them and for my response in that event as well.

At best, my prayer does not seek to manipulate God into doing my will – quite the opposite. Prayer enters the pool of God’s own love and widens outward.”