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PRAYING LOVING PRAYERS (PART 2)

by Eric Elder
The Ranch

Last week I shared with you how I’ve been convicted about praying loving prayers: prayers that I can stand behind AND which express my love for others in a way that they can hear it. It’s already really changed the way I pray in just a few weeks. I feel like my prayers have been more loving, more kind, and by that definition alone, more effective than ever before.
In one conversation, a friend asked me to pray for a relationship that she was hoping would work out. She said, “I’ve asked some people to pray for me about it, but I don’t want them to just pray that whatever happens will happen! I want them to pray that the relationship would work out! That’s what’s really on my heart.”
When I heard her say what was really on her heart, I knew that was a prayer I could stand behind AND which would express my love for her in a way that she could hear it. I asked if I could pray for her, got up off my chair and knelt down on my knees–and prayed that her relationship would work out!
In another conversation, a friend was telling me about her upcoming cancer treatments. Although there were many things she brought up that I could have prayed for–from healing of the cancer to the treatments and the fatigue that they produce–at one point she said, “What I really want, though, is to be able to enjoy food again! I’ve only had 3 meals in the last 6 months that I’ve actually enjoyed eating.” When I heard her say those words, “What I really want…” I knew that was a prayer I could stand behind AND which would express my love for her in a way that she could hear it. I asked if I could pray for her, took hold of her hand and knelt down on one knee, praying that she would  be able to enjoy food again! (I’ve also been praying for her healing and the treatments and the fatigue, but I saved those for my personal prayers at home. What she seemed to really need in that moment when we were together was to enjoy eating food again.)
In yet another conversation, I was talking with a friend on the phone who lives several states away. He told me about a difficult situation a family was going through who lived down the street from him. He wondered if he should stop by and try to talk to them, and he asked if I could “keep him in prayer” about it. I said I would and decided to ask him if I could pray for him right then while we were still on the phone. He said, “Yes,” so I prayed a simple prayer: “God, help ____ know if he should stop by and talk to his neighbor or not. In Jesus’ name, Amen.” It didn’t take long. It didn’t take a lot of words. But I was able to pray with my friend, right then and there–right at his point of need–giving him the benefit of the prayer and the awareness that I cared, both at the same time.
It sounds like I must be praying for people constantly, and in some ways, I am. But in other ways, I’m usually just going about my day. When a need arises, I pray. It’s as simple as that.
Last weekend, while I was grilling hamburgers in my backyard, a friend texted to tell me that her doctor had just called her with some bad news: her biopsy results came back and she had tested positive for breast cancer. I got down on my knees, right there in front of my barbecue grill, and prayed that God would heal her completely, through surgery or supernaturally, and that the cancer would never, ever come back. If anyone saw me, they might have thought I was praying and making sacrifices on the altar of my barbecue grill. I wasn’t! I was simply driven to my knees to plead with the God of the universe–the God who created my friend, and who loved her and cared about her even more than I did–to work a miracle in her life. I texted her back to let her know I had prayed and what I had been praying.
As you pray, pray prayers that you can stand behind AND which express your love for others in a way that they can hear it. I’m still learning how to do this myself, but I’m seeing the fruit of it already. I’d appreciate your prayers for me as I do.

P.S. If you’d like to learn more about prayer, and how you can have a more effective prayer life, I’d love for you to join Greg Potzer and me for a “Guided Prayer Retreat” in December. The deadline for signing up is October 15th, so let us know soon if you’re interested in joining us in person at The Cove in North Carolina. (You’ll also be able to join us for the event live online, but we’d love to meet you in person if you can come!) Click here for more details or to register to join us in person!

To know whom you worship, let me see you in your shop, let me hear you in your trade, let me know how you rent your houses, how you get your money, how you kept it, and how you spent it.
Theodore Parker

He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.
Psalm 147:3
The Revised Standard Version

When someone says, “Oh, I can worship God anywhere,” the answer is, “Do you?”
James A. Pike

There are two days in the week upon which I do not worry: two carefree days kept sacredly free from fear and apprehension. One of these days is yesterday. Yesterday with its cares and frets and all its pains and aches, all its faults, its mistakes and blunders has passed forever beyond my recall. It was mine. It is God’s. And the other day that I do not worry about is tomorrow. Tomorrow, with all its possible adversities, its burdens, its perils, its large promise and poor performance, its failures and mistakes, is as far beyond my mastery as its dead sister, yesterday. Tomorrow is God’s day. It will be mine. There is left for myself, then, but one day in the week: today. Any woman can carry the burdens of just one day. Any man can resist temptations of today. It is only when we add the burdens of those two awful eternities, yesterday and tomorrow, that we break down.
Robert l. Burdette

And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.
Zechariah 8:17
The King James Version

The things that we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God.
Elisabeth Elliot

Be very careful, then, how you live–not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.  Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.  Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit.  Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Ephesians 5:15-21
The New International Version

It is impossible to please everybody.  It’s not impossible to please God.  So try pleasing God.
Jim Gallery

I know now, Lord, why You utter no answer.  You are Yourself the answer.  Before Your face, questions die away.  What other answer would suffice?  Only words, words; to be let out to battle against other words.
C. S. Lewis

O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee.
Psalm 69:5
The King James Version

You will find all that is lacking in your heart in the heart of Jesus, dying on the cross.  Then you will be enabled to love those who you would naturally, in your pride, hate and crush.
Francois Fenelon

His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.
Luke 1:50
The New International Version

Superstition, idolatry and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a begging.
Martin Luther

PRAYING LOVING PRAYERS
by Eric Elder
The Ranch
 
Can I share with you something from my heart that I’ve learned about prayer in the last two weeks?
Two weeks ago, I was talking to a dear friend who’s going through a painful divorce. At the end of our conversation, I said something that I thought was incredibly loving and kind. I said that, even after all that she had shared with me about her divorce, I was still praying that if there was any way possible, even at this late hour, that God would bring about a reconciliation.
She said, “Eric, if you have even one speck of love for me, you will never, ever, ever pray that prayer for me again.”
I was totally caught off guard by her reaction. While I meant well with my prayer, and I have seen God pull off miracles at the 11th hour in similar situations, what I didn’t realize was how my prayer sounded to her ears. She felt betrayed. Hurt. And the pain on her face was excruciating.
What to me was an expression of a last sliver of hope for her situation was to her like a 10-ton weight that I had just dropped on top of her. In one fell swoop, I had negated her thousands of hours of praying about the situation, her decades of wrestling through and trying to do everything she could possibly do to avoid what she now felt God was leading her to do. I had invalidated the very real and very difficult decision she had finally come to, a decision that she felt went against everything she had ever believed in, and was going to cost her immeasurably in terms of her family, her friends and her standing in the Christian community.
The pain I caused her in that moment was as real and as strong as any of the other pain she had experienced over the years.
I went home and cried. And I’ve been crying on and off every day for the past two weeks–not just about how I hurt her with my prayers, but how I’ve hurt others in similar ways by similar prayers over the years. While my prayer was a true statement of my belief in a God who can do anything, absolutely anything, it wasn’t kind. It wasn’t loving. And it caused real pain.
While I believe it’s right and good and God-pleasing to have strong, deeply held beliefs, I don’t believe it’s right and good and God-pleasing to express those beliefs–in prayer or otherwise–in a way that crushes others, whether intentionally or unintentionally. It’s not kind. It’s not loving. And it causes real pain.
We cannot sacrifice others on the altar of our beliefs–especially when there’s a better way.
I’m not wanting to discourage you from praying for others. I’m wanting to encourage you to be sensitive to how others might receive your words, even those words that you believe are right and true and good.
Even Jesus held back at times from sharing the full weight of what He could have said because He knew His words would have crushed those who heard them. When He was heading to His imminent death, Jesus told His disciples, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear” (John 16:12).
It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t want to tell them everything. It’s just that He knew that if He told them in that moment, His words would have crushed them.
If there’s one thing I could share with you today, it would be this: Don’t sacrifice others on the altar of your belief. Instead, come alongside them in prayer. Pray prayers that you can stand behind AND which express your love for them in a way that they can hear it.
How can we do this? It can be as simple as asking, “What do you want me to pray for you?”  Then listen to their response and pray the best possible prayer you can pray that honors their request.
Jesus did the same. He didn’t presume. On several occasions, He simply asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” (see Mark 10:36 and 10:51).
So I asked my friend whom I had hurt so deeply, “What do you want me to pray for you?”
She said, “Pray that I would be able to truly love my husband through all of this. I want to be able to do that no matter what happens with our marriage.”  Now that was a prayer I could stand behind. That was a prayer I could pray with my whole heart AND which would express my love for her in a way that she could truly hear it.
Don’t sacrifice others on the altar of your belief. Come alongside them in prayer. Pray prayers that you CAN stand behind AND which express your love for them in a way that they can truly hear it. As the apostle Paul said, “…if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2b).

P.S. If you’d like to learn more about prayer, and how you can have a more effective prayer life, I’d love for you to join Greg Potzer and me for a “Guided Prayer Retreat” in December. We only have 12 spots left, so let us know soon if you’re interested in joining us in person at The Cove in North Carolina. (You’ll also be able to join us for the event live online, but we’d love to meet you in person if you can come!) Click here for more details or to register to join us in person!

A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough today to last him for the next six months, or take sufficient air into his lungs at once to sustain life for a week to come.  We must draw upon God’s boundless stores for grace from day to day, as we need it.
Dwight L. Moody

Your own ears will hear him, Right behind you a voice will say, “This is the way you should go,” whether to the right or to the left.
Isaiah 30:21
The New Living Translation

A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures.
Irish proverb

Fix your eyes on Christ, for you become like that upon which you habitually gaze.  He has all your virtues perfectly blended, plus.  Become Christ centered, not self centered, even in balancing virtues.
E. Stanley Jones

I know that the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted and the right of the poor.
Psalm 140:12
The King James Version

The value of a life can only be estimated by its relationship to God.
Oswald Chambers

The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.
2 Peter 2:9
The King James Version

Prescription for a happier and healthier life: resolve to slow down your pace; learn to say no gracefully; resist the temptation to chase after more pleasure, more hobbies, and more social entanglements.
James Dobson