The Names I Wasn't Bringing To God

I noticed something about my prayers recently that I didn't particularly like.

There was a lot of me in them.

My decisions. My family. Things I needed wisdom about. People I wanted God to help because whatever they were dealing with affected me too. Even some of my prayers for other people, if I'm being completely fair, eventually wandered back toward how their situation was making my life harder.

I don't think there's anything wrong with bringing our own needs to God. Jesus told us to ask. Scripture is full of people doing exactly that, sometimes very urgently.

But I started wondering when I'd last spent any real time praying for somebody who couldn't do anything for me.

That question hung around.

A few days later I was waiting for someone outside a medical building. People kept coming through the sliding doors, some moving quickly, some slowly, and one older man came out carrying one of those clear plastic hospital bags with his belongings inside. He sat on a bench and stared at the pavement for quite a while.

I knew absolutely nothing about him.

Didn't know whether he'd received wonderful news or terrible news. Didn't know whether he believed in God. Didn't even know his name.

I prayed for him anyway.

It wasn't much.

“Father, whatever he's carrying right now, please help him.”

A vehicle eventually pulled up. He got in. That was the end of my involvement in his life.

I doubt he ever knew anyone had prayed for him.

For some reason, I liked that.

Nobody Could Thank Me For It

There is something different about praying for someone who will never know.

You can't get credit.

Nobody sends a message later saying how much your prayer meant to them. There's no story to tell about how grateful they were that you stood with them.

You just pray.

I've started doing this more often, although not with any impressive consistency.

I'll see an ambulance passing and pray for whoever is inside.

Sometimes I'll hear about somebody else's problem through a friend and remember it later.

Other times a person's face will come to mind for no obvious reason, and I'll pray for them instead of trying to figure out why I thought of them.

A surprising amount of praying for others is probably invisible.

Maybe it should be.

I Have Said “I’ll Pray For You” And Forgotten

This deserves its own admission.

I've done it.

Someone tells me they're having surgery next week, dealing with something at work, worried about one of their children, or waiting for an important answer.

“I'll pray for you.”

And I mean it.

I genuinely mean it.

Then the conversation ends, somebody needs something, my day keeps moving, and sometime later I realize I never actually prayed.

That's embarrassing.

I've gotten better about praying right then when possible.

Not because I expect every conversation to turn into a prayer meeting. Sometimes it would be awkward or inappropriate to stop everything. But even quietly, after the person walks away, I can bring their name before God before life swallows the intention.

Good intentions are surprisingly easy to lose.

Paul’s Prayers Get Very Specific

I was reading one of Paul's letters and noticed how often he tells people he's praying for them.

Not vaguely.

In Philippians 1, for example, he prays that their love will abound more and more in knowledge and judgment. He wants something to happen inside them, not merely around them.

That made me look at some of my own prayers.

“God, bless them.”

Nothing wrong with that.

But what do I mean?

Sometimes I honestly don't know.

So I've been trying, when I can, to slow down enough to think about the actual person.

If they're discouraged, I can pray for courage.

If they're making a decision, wisdom.

If they're succeeding, humility.

If they're hurting somebody, conviction.

If I don't know what they need, I can admit that too.

Praying For Someone You’re Irritated With Is Different

This is where the subject becomes less pleasant.

It's fairly easy to pray for somebody you love.

It's another thing to pray sincerely for someone who has annoyed you, disappointed you, embarrassed you, or said something about you that wasn't true.

I've tried.

My early attempts have occasionally sounded suspiciously like asking God to explain to the person why I was right.

That's technically prayer, I suppose.

Probably not my finest work.

Jesus' instruction to pray for those who mistreat us doesn't leave much room for that kind of cleverness.

I don't think He meant, “Ask the Father to make them finally understand what a difficult person they are.”

Sometimes I don't feel loving toward the person when I begin.

I pray anyway.

Not fake affection. Not pretending what happened was acceptable.

Just their name before God.

“Help them.”

Some days that's about all I can manage without becoming dishonest.

Something Uncomfortable Happened After A While

There was one person I prayed for because I knew I needed to, not because I particularly wanted to.

For quite a while, nothing changed between us.

What did change was the story I was telling myself about them.

I had reduced the person to the thing they'd done.

You can do that remarkably easily.

Someone hurts you and eventually that's who they become in your mind. You stop remembering that they have parents, worries, bills, regrets, insecurities, mornings when they wake up tired, things they wish they'd handled differently.

Prayer complicated my version of them.

I didn't suddenly decide they were right.

They weren't.

I just had a harder time making them into a villain.

Frankly, being angry was easier before that happened.

There Are People Around Us Carrying Things Quietly

I've thought about this while standing in checkout lines.

You can be three feet away from somebody whose life changed yesterday and have absolutely no idea.

The cashier might be worried about her mother.

The man behind you could be heading home to an empty house after losing someone.

A teenager staring at his phone might be waiting for an answer he's afraid to receive.

Or everybody could simply be buying groceries and thinking about dinner.

We don't know.

I don't want to turn ordinary strangers into imaginary tragedies just so I can feel compassionate. That's another kind of performance.

But I do think I've underestimated how much unseen weight people carry.

A short prayer costs me almost nothing.

My Prayer List Became A Little Strange

I used to imagine a prayer list as something organized.

Names.

Categories.

Needs.

Maybe dates beside answered prayers.

Mine isn't like that anymore.

There are names written on scraps of paper. A couple in the back of a notebook. Someone stored in my phone under a reminder that made perfect sense when I created it and barely makes sense now.

One note just says, “man's daughter.”

I know exactly who that means.

I met him briefly. He told me about his daughter, and I said I'd pray.

I don't know her name.

So apparently “man's daughter” is enough information for me and God to work with.

I Wonder Who Has Prayed For Me Without Telling Me

This thought came to me one evening and stayed.

How many times has somebody prayed for me and never mentioned it?

A family member.

Someone from church.

A person who watched a video.

Someone who saw that I was struggling before I admitted it myself.

I have no way of knowing.

There may have been mornings when I felt unusually strengthened and somewhere, somebody had my name in their daily prayer.

I can't prove that connection.

I don't need to.

It simply makes me grateful for prayers I may never hear.

It also makes me want to return the favor to people who will never hear mine.

Sometimes I Still Spend Most Of Prayer Talking About Myself

This article hasn't cured that.

I prayed this morning and caught myself doing it again.

There were legitimate things on my mind, and I brought them to God. I'm going to keep doing that.

Then I remembered somebody I hadn't thought about in several days.

So I prayed for him.

Then somebody else.

One name led to another.

I eventually circled back to my own stuff because, well, apparently I wasn't finished with it.

That's probably what my prayer life actually looks like more often than anything polished.

Me.

Someone else.

A worry.

Thank You, Father.

Another person.

Something I forgot yesterday.

Back to me again.

I'm okay with the messiness of that.

What I don't want is for my world to become so small that every conversation with God eventually has my name at the center of it.

There are too many other names worth bringing up.

Daily Effective Prayers Of The Week