Prayer.
The power of prayer, the need for prayer, the essence of prayer.
Throughout our individual Christian walks, we all have times (and often this is a constant practice, and should be!) of praying for each other. We go to God with requests for our loved ones and/or fellow Christians, we appeal to other believers for prayer on the behalf of friends, and we ask for prayers of healing, encouragement, and strength for ourselves.
Prayer is an intimate lifeline between us and our Creator in the quiet dawn of the morning, and it is also a strong bond between Him and us all, joined together to petition for a cause.
We pray for each other, we lift one another up, and after all has been said to God that can be said, we turn our own words to each other to keep encouraging, keep blessing, and keep inspiring. We do what we can to meet the spiritual and physical needs of our brethren.
This is what Jesus instructed us to do. Praise God for His humble servants on this earth who do walk in this way and live to follow His calling each day.
But I have been pondering something...
What happens when we pray against each other?
We have prayers requests for matters about our health, our financial dilemmas, and other personal issues that need God's touch. These are mostly things that we know God wants to help us with, for He is our provider and wants none of us to be hurt or to go hungry or to be left out on the streets. Obviously. (Not that He doesn't have a perfect plan for how to turn all these things to our good, should something harmful come to pass!)
But then we have our other prayer requests that go a little deeper and are a little more complicated. We ask for prayer in our struggles with other human beings, and sometimes, in our struggles with other people who are... Christians.
This is a zone where we must use caution and discernment.
Are these prayers being asked with the themes of, for example:
- "Help me to do right by my neighbor..."?
- "Help me to be Christlike, so that all my interactions with this person give God the glory and point them toward Him..."?
- "Let all that is right and true and of You be what is emphasized and victorious in this situation..."?
- "Lord, protect all of your children, and put an end to this dissension between us..."?
- And most importantly, "Let Your will be done. Let what is right be glorified, and what is wrong be cast away. Maybe we're all wrong in some way, and we are all just broken here before You, needing Your grace and strength to mend the tears ripped in this life."?
OR are prayers being asked with these themes...?
- Calls to arms?
- Battle cries for vengeance against those who have wronged us?
- Prayers for them to fall, to see their blindness (failing to own that we are equally guilty of blindness as well, time and again...) and to ultimately come around to choosing what we think is right for them...?
And are prayers asked with quiet humility, with rejoicing in the knowledge that God has already won the battle, or with anger and confusion and weeping?
Let me note that there is nothing wrong with being angry, or confused, or with weeping. But where do these emotions come from, what/who are they directed at, and what is their purpose? Question these things.
My thoughts have been plagued by this image of how much of a struggle is going on in the Spiritual world we cannot see with our physical eyes. I see Christians fighting Christians. I imagine all the contradictory prayers.
One person cries "Lord, make her stop!"
The other person also prays "Lord make him stop!"
Satan attacks us by using us against each other. He has been doing this from the beginning. He clouds our minds and garbles our speech at every opening we lend him, and stokes the flames under our desires for revenge and self-satisfaction. We engage in spiritual warfare using Jesus' holy name to undo one another... I think that is taking the Lord's name in vain. I think that is grieving the Holy Spirit.
What makes us think we have all the answers? Who are we to look at something once with our human eyes and then plead with God to fix it the way we see fit? Who are we to wage war and take action without consideration for our fellow believers and their loved ones?
What if God already knows what is going on? What if God already knows the right solution? What if God already has the perfect time, the perfect plan in mind? What if God has your best interest at heart?
Oh wait... He does.
I Corinthians 2:16
"For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?"
I think that too many of us, (myself included!), see one chapter of an entire tale and decide that we are going to handle it. We detect one problem, and seize hold.
How are we going to handle it? Our way, of course. Each of us naturally starts out thinking his way is right. Who goes into a situation thinking, "Oh, I'm probably in the wrong."
No, that isn't our first reaction. We go into something with the information we have, assuming our initial perspective is right, that we understand and know what should be done. We forget to keep eyes open and keep gleaning information and keep asking God for direction. Or we don't consider that maybe getting involved in something is not necessary at all...
Then we become too confident, too stuck on taking action that we forget to look up, to ask if the Lord knows a better way, or maybe even knows the whole story better than we do. We think we understand this story better than anyone else, because we are living right in the middle of it, and the problem has fallen into our lap to be fixed.
When in actuality it's an opportunity to cast your burdens on the Lord.
In our eyes, this fight is our responsibility to respond to, when in actuality, the battle belongs to the Lord.
I Corinthians 3:18-20 Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks that he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written "He catches the wise in their craftiness", and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile."
We forget that meting out judgement and punishment is not our place.
Romans 12:19
Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
I think He means it when He says it.
But we justify our actions by saying "Well, he did it!" or "She did it, too!"
Why does that make it okay?
Romans 12:17
Do not repay anyone evil for evil.
Maybe we should act like mature children of God and commit ourselves to God's instruction, rather than hiding behind the shortcomings of others to make things "even". Let's take responsibility for our own actions.
Jesus Himself says...
Matthew 5:44
"But I tell you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..."
If you want a definition of Love, go to I Corinthians 13:4-7, and then you can flip back to Romans 12:9-21 for a more expanded-upon instruction about how to Love and how to Live a life pleasing to God. Educate yourselves! Let Him write His words on your heart! Love your enemies. Love is an action.
Pray for your enemies.
I write all of this to say...
Whether someone is your enemy or your friend, whether you know them well or have only ever heard of them and their situation... whether they seem to have hurt you, or a friend, or a vague acquaintance, we have a responsibility to Love and strive for Peace with everyone. To be kind, especially to those who are fellow believers, and to live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ.
Can you hear all the voices of Christians throughout the world right now? We're crying, we're whispering, we're screaming to God. You are, I am, every one of us is, in our own private way. We detect a problem, we focus on what we see directly before us in the physical realm, and we assume a lot of hasty conclusions.
"God, please fix this. Make so-and-so see they are wrong. So-and-so asked me to pray that such-and-such a thing would be resolved and that so-and-so would be stopped from doing such-and-such."
How many people are a drive away, praying for the exact opposite of what you are asking God for?
There is power in prayer.
There is power in the name of Jesus.
And when we are all using this Holy Name and all making requests and issuing orders to God that oppose each other's prayers, I think our Christian unity, our strength and power through Him, is being devastated.
Jesus did say pray for your enemies, not pray against your enemies.
And when God doesn't answer a wrongly-asked request or meet a pridefully expressed demand, we get angry at Him, or we push harder with our own will upon the people we are trying to get things done against.
A thought struck me so hard today.
What if we simply prayed "God, let Your will be done."
What if we did that. All of us.
Just stopped the white-knuckling and the desperate scramble for control.
Stopped assuming that we know how to solve the problems, that we know the hearts of others.
Accepted that The Lord knows all hearts (yes, even yours), the Lord knows the right time and season for everything, and that The Lord will take even the things the Enemy intends for harm and use them for good.
We have such a short attention span. One thing goes wrong, and we think God has lost control. So we have to take control again ourselves.
Prayer is our lifeline to God. He wants us to come and lay everything in our hearts out before Him. Don't hide anything, He sees it anyway. Express everything you feel to Him. He genuinely cares. And He knows what is best for you. For everyone!
Romans 8:26
...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
Then accept His hand as He reaches out to guide you. Let Him carry you. God is not looking at you with contempt. Ever. When you belong to Him, you are made perfect in His eyes. Now He wants to help you live up to that full, overwhelming potential He placed in you. He wants to make your paths straight, to guide you through your own human foolishness. He understands how you feel. He truly does know.
And He knows what is BEST.
Proverbs 3:5&6
Trust in The Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.
Pray. Pray without ceasing. Tell God everything you feel, make your requests known to God. You can even not say a single intelligible word- just cry, or be silent. He knows your heart no matter what your mouth utters. Be still before God and let your heart commune with The One who made you, loves you, and will never let you go.
And then?
"Your will be done."
Even Jesus was afraid. He was afraid of what was to come as he was about to be separated from His Father for the first time in existence. He told God how he felt, he made His request, but then He gave it to God with the perfect submission of "Your Will be done." Because he knew God's will and plan were perfect.
When we pray for each other, let us strive to pray with a correct focus and an understanding of God's will. His will is justice, His will is peace, His will is that no man may be lost, but come to Him.
We are near-sighted quite often. God sees what is really going on in all our lives and hearts. We misunderstand each other so much. God's timing is spot on, while we are impatient.
He never once instructs us to hurt one another, to go pray against a fellow believer. We are supposed to love in all ways (and sometimes that is tough love), and to catch a brother when he falls (show Him the Word when he strays from it). We are supposed to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.
Imagine if we all prayed for each other and placed each other in God's hands.
We could be no place safer.
And then, though we are all speaking to God with our varied troubles and requests, out of our differing circumstances and levels of maturity, we are all of one accord when we submit to Him with "Your will be done."
Let us stand united. Or broken together.
Humbled and submitted to the One True Way.
Even when we don't quite understand.
And God’s peace [shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace] which transcends all understanding shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:7 AMP
It is heartbreaking to see Christians fighting Christians, and warring at each other in prayer. I believe we need to evaluate ourselves with the eyes of Christ and change our perspectives accordingly to imitate the prayer attitude shown in Jesus.
