Praying for others

Jesus compared praying for the needs of others to a man coming to a friend's house at midnight. After waking the whole household with his knocking, he pleads for the loan of three loaves of bread to feed the visitor who has just arrived at his house. (Luke 11:5-8) If such audacity and persistence gets results on earth, says Jesus, you can be assured that it will be just as effective in heaven.

Our 'visitor' need not be aware of our midnight door-knocking. For instance, we might pray silently for the physical and spiritual needs of the people around us as we travel to work, as we meet people during our day, as we watch the news on television or read the newspaper. Such prayers can strengthen our faith when we see answers to our private prayers that can only come from God himself since no-one else knows about them. Even if we never get to know, this side of heaven, how our prayers were answered, bringing others' needs to God in prayer is a wonderful way of ministering to people. (Obviously, if we have the means to provide for their needs out of what God has already provided to us, we should do that too.)

Sometimes, though, we might let our 'visitor' know that we're off to get some bread for them. In other words, we will offer to pray for them. Saying "I'll pray for you" can sometimes be a cop-out from actually doing what's needed, whether that's providing a meal, spending time listening or whatever. But knowing that someone is praying for them is often a great encouragement to the person who is struggling. Even some non-believers appreciate such an offer, though we need to be aware that there are others who will be offended. (We can still pray privately for such people, of course.)

When should we invite our hungry 'visitor' to come with us to our generous friend's house to get bread? That is, when should we offer to pray with someone? In my experience, people are much more eager to have someone pray with them than we are to offer. If the other person is a Christian, asking "Would you like me to pray with you?" is unlikely to cause offense, even if the answer is "No, thanks." We need to be sensitive to the situation - not everyone wants their most intimate problems aired aloud in prayer in public. Some Christians are happy to be prayed for, but are not comfortable about praying out loud themselves. It's probably better not to offer to pray with a non-believer until we know them reasonably well, unless we're prompted by the Holy Spirit to do so.

The advantage of praying aloud with someone is that they hear what we're praying, and can then see how our prayer is answered. The words we use in prayer can be an encouragement, if they remind the person we're praying for of the goodness and faithfulness of God. The disadvantage is that we can slip into the temptation to move from genuine prayer to words as therapy or a form of intimacy. For this reason, it is better in some situations to invite another person to join you in praying for the person in need.

The more we're aware of our own dependence on God, the better we will be at praying for others. The man in Jesus story knew he had nothing to offer his visitor, but he knew he could depend on his friend to provide it. Jesus tells us to keep on knocking on God's door because it will be opened.