How have your best friends
Become my best friends?
We’re companions on the same journey,
Headed in the same direction,
Marked by your signs.
That’s how.
(Everyday Psalms, Psalm 119, page 278)
I miss my Mom. When she died, I lost the one person in the world who had been praying for me every day of my life without fail — the only one other than Jesus, who lives to intercede for us before his Father’s throne (Heb. 7:25).
One of the simplest ways to love and take care of others is to pray for them. If God is alive and active in the world — a belief central to all biblical faith — then placing others in his good hands is the kindest thing we can do for them and they for us.
There are times when we all need an advocate, someone who will take our side and plead our case. Praying for others is an important form of advocacy, speaking to the management (so to speak) for them. But unlike far too many bosses and managers and people behind the desk, God isn’t in the business of denying as many requests as possible. He’s not a heavenly insurance company holding out on paying our claims.
When we talk with God about our friends and other loved ones, we are loving them alongside of the one who loves them best of all.
Some people write out prayer lists or have prayer cards tucked into their pockets. As artificial as this may seem, it can be effective and thoughtful. Frankly, I love making it on people’s lists. The Bible itself is surprisingly full of lists, and it’s good to be on them.
I’ve found that even my friends who don’t believe in God take comfort when I tell them I’m praying for them. They have a sense of being loved in a way that merely thinking positive thoughts about them doesn’t offer. They know I’ve gone to the top for them, advocated for them with the one I go to with my needs as well.
And appeals in prayer for fellow followers of Jesus offers a peace nothing else can bring. This is why we see Paul starting many of his letters in the New Testament with references to his many prayers for his readers and ending letters with requests for prayers for himself.
To be prayed for is to be loved twice: once by the person praying and once again by the God who hears those prayers. Does adding a multitude of prayers together somehow tip the balance of heaven’s scales or beat down heaven’s door, getting the request being asked for? Well, no. But it does add up to an amazing amount of love, a choir of love, a cheering stadium of love. And God pays attention to love like that.
Praying for others mirrors the Trinity in a three-personed relationship. For when I talk about you with God, I involve our Lord in the relationship I have with you. The creates depth and dimension to the relationship I already have with you by involving God in it. It also creates depth and dimension to the relationship I already have with God by involving you in it. This kind of gossip makes our relationships stronger and more meaningful unlike other kinds of gossip which trivialize relationships into tasty morsels of information.
And so we pray for one another, loving God and one another at the same time, engaging in a holy gossip the binds us together with cords of kindness.
Prayer: Thank you for the gift of friendship, my Lord. My heart is filled with the people you have filled it with. And thank you for hearing my prayers for those I love — from simple requests for safety on the road to the bearing of excruciating burdens. I love these people and I know your love for them far surpasses mine. So tie us all together and be pleased to hear my petitions on their behalf. In Jesus our advocate. Amen.