I will thank you,Yahweh,
But I won’t do it by myself.
I want others to get in on it with me.
(Everyday Psalms, Psalm 108, page 251)
The daughter of dear friends is hospitalized because her eating disorder has become increasingly unhealthy. There’s nothing I can do to fix the teenager or her parents.
My sister lay in a coma after being struck by a young driver who’d been drinking with friends. I look at her and I look at her two boys, seven and five years of age, and I look at her husband. I can’t heal any of them.
A friend cheats on his wife and spirals out of control in numerous ways as they divorce. I can’t patch together him or them or anything else in their lives.
A member of the small group at church shares the sorrow of getting married without her father in attendance. He’s in prison because of some business deals he didn’t realize were illegal. I can’t make up for the distance and the inability of a father to walk his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day.
There are so many times when I can’t do anything at all for others. All I can do is pray for them. Usually, that’s the best help I can give. It’s certainly better than giving them unasked for and unwanted advice.
The best thing Job’s friends did for him after he lost everyone and everything in his life was to sit in silence with him. When they opened their mouths, things went sideways. Instead of speaking to him and ending up arguing with him, they would have done better to have saved their words for God. In prayer, God would have weeded out their self-righteousness and kept the flowers of love
Sometimes the best thing to do is to just be with one another. And sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all, at least nothing beside the prayers offered for them to the one who loves them most of all.
And our prayers aren’t nothing. They may feel like nothing. But if God is in fact real and powerful and loving, then our prayers are easily the most helpful things we can offer on behalf of those we love.
Sure, there are other things we can do: Go on walks with them; provide meals; bring flowers; mow lawns; help with financial details that might get overlooked; send text messages; and other practicalities. But none of those fix people. They are the actions of companions who love one another.
Prayer pulls God into our relationships with those we love and says, “I feel my limitations here, God. Please help this one I love in ways I can’t help them.”
If I’m a mechanic, I can help my friend with a broken car. If I’m a doctor, I can help my friend with a broken bone. If I can cook, I can fix a meal for someone. There are times when fixing things for people is appropriate and within our capabilities. But there are times to call a mechanic or a doctor or a cook on behalf of someone else. And there are times when the best thing we can do for those we love is to simply pray.
Prayer: Here I am, Lord, struggling to help those I love and incapable of doing or saying anything helpful at all. But I beg you, be with them. Care for them. Heal them. Fix what’s broken in them and around them. I am out of my depth here, but you’re not. This is your sweet spot. So, please, get to work in their lives. Rebuild. Restore. Renew. In Jesus. Amen.