Colossians 1:9-10 We have not stopped praying for you since the first day we heard about you. In fact, we always pray that God will show you everything He wants you to do and that you may have all the wisdom and understanding His Spirit gives. Then you will live a life that honors the Lord, and you will always please Him by doing good deeds. You will come to know God even better. (CEV)



 "I'm praying for you."

"I'll pray about that."

 "Will you pray for me?"

Those types of comments and questions are often shared among Christian friends. And to be fair, there are a few prayer warriors out there who take the idea of praying for others seriously. They offer deep and fervent prayers for their friends, family, churches, the nation, etc. They don't need any prompting to pray for others.

That's not me. Intercessory prayer is not my spiritual gift.

It doesn't come naturally to me to regularly lift up others, at length. My prayer style, I suppose, is more of a conversation throughout the day that I drop into from time to time. Sure, there are some times of deliberate focus, but for me it's an ongoing consciousness of God and hopefully, sometimes, intentionally sharing life, thoughts, concerns and praises with Him.

I also have some folks I do pray for regularly and it's neat that sometimes, the Holy Spirit will guide me to pray about something for them that happen to hit where they are living that day. But even those prayers aren't long and drawn out. (But do they have to be?)

 Rarely do I take a Scripture like the one above and pray that for a specific friend.

How would you like to know that someone "doesn't stop" praying for you? That they are asking God to show you what He wants you to do? That you would have wisdom and understanding from His Spirit? That you would please Him? How cool would that be? This doesn't mean they can't pray for your job situation, or your family dilemma, or an important decision. But how much deeper to pray for your life in Christ, so that you would have HIS guidance, and that your deepest priority would be to glorify Him, not to see a certain outcome of a situation, like so many prayer requests are?

If you happen to pray for me anytime, you can't go wrong by praying a Scripture over me even if you don't know about particular concerns I have.

 Lord, teach me to pray more meaningfully for others. Print This