Praying "for" Others

27/10/2022

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:
Thiry-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Thessalonians
1.11 – 2.2

Brothers and sisters: We always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.

The healing that can be achieved through modern medicine amazes me. I’m thinking specifically of treatments designed to keep us alive even when our major organs are failing. Although we may have to stop the heart for cardiac surgery, we can keep blood circulating in the body through the use of a heart-lung bypass machine. When kidneys no longer function as they should, we can filter wastes and toxins from the bloodstream using a dialysis machine. When the lungs are incapable of delivering oxygen to and removing carbon dioxide from the body, a ventilator makes this exchange of gases happen. In times of crisis, when our organs are incapable of keeping us alive, these machines step in to do the job — and they keep on doing the job until our organs are restored and able to resume their work.

Could the same life-saving assistance be provided during a spiritual crisis of faith? When our heart is so anemic, breathless, and toxic that it cannot call out to God in prayer, is there anything that will do that work in its stead? I think the answer to that question has to be yes.

In his second letter to the Thessalonians, Paul writes, “Brothers and sisters: We always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy.” For most of my life, when I have said to someone, “I will pray for you,” I mean what St. Paul means: “I will ask God to help you” or “I will ask Mary or the saints to intercede for you with God so that God will help you.”

Recently, however, I encountered a beautiful, new-to-me meaning in the promise to pray for others. This is it: sometimes, when people need me to pray for them, they need me to pray “for” them because they cannot pray. They need another person to say the prayers that they are too broken to pray themselves. Perhaps they are drained. Perhaps their heart is wounded or flagging or failing. Perhaps it needs spiritual dialysis to remove the sludge or a ventilator to breathe life into it. In these moments, they need someone to cry out to God on their behalf, to ask for Jesus’s mercy, to call down the fire of the Holy Spirit even as their own fire threatens to gutter out.

May we always be faithful to our promises to pray “for” others who cannot pray themselves, and may our act of praying in their stead be the thing that keeps their heart alive long enough to allow it to heal.

Donna Davis

6 Comments

Lisa

27/10/2022 07:09:17 am

This is so true Donna:
“They need another person to say the prayers that they are too broken to pray themselves.”
Just last week I was spiralling with anxiety, believing all the lies that the evil one says about me. I wasn’t sleeping and this was impacting my ability to think rationally or to reach out and ask for prayers. Then I went to Proclaim on Friday night (a beautiful praise and worship event with prayer teams available). I couldn’t even bring myself to walk up to a prayer team….I was too embarrassed to ask for the same prayers I always ask. But then a beautiful friend must have felt the Spirit prompting her, because she came over to me, placed her hand on my shoulder and started praying. She renounced lies and evil spirits (things I have been taught to do but for some reason forgot!) I felt a weight immediately lift from me. My heart felt more at ease, more at peace. I needed her to pray “for” me, because in that moment I was too weak to pray for myself. And I am truly grateful. 🙏🏼❤️

Donna Davis

27/10/2022 09:40:01 am

Bless you, Lisa! What a powerful example of praying “for.” Lies, like stones in the road, are designed to trip and cripple us on our path to Christ. When we have just enough mobility to make it to the pew — but not enough to make it to the prayer team, God brings the prayer to us. Your friend was like God’s “St. John Ambulance of prayer,” providing urgent care onsite.

Alana

27/10/2022 01:45:17 pm

I have repeatedly been the recipient of this kind of being prayed for and I too am so grateful. I am truly not capable of anything on my own - and especially at those time when I feel incapable of even praying - I am completely held up by God’s grace and the prayer of others. I love the “Saint John Ambulance” of prayer idea. Let’s all go to others and give God’s urgent care on-site. So beautiful. Amen. 😊🙏🏼💕xo

27/10/2022 04:29:35 pm

Amen, Alana! I’m grateful that we can be honest about the times when we’re paralyzed and unable to pray. Surely this happens to everyone. Thanks be to God for those who ask for and give God’s urgent prayer care.

Nora

28/10/2022 11:54:36 am

Oh Donna, thank you so much for sharing this insight. What a gift it is to us, when we can indeed pray 'for ' someone, to pray in their stead, offering praise or supplication - and what a gift to know that we can ourselves be supported in this way when we are in need. Something to ponder today! God bless.

30/10/2022 05:55:13 pm

Bless you, Nora! It is truly is a gift. What I love most about prayerfulness as I learn to lean into it better is that it is dynamic. Much more than simply asking God for things, prayerfulness changes us. It draws us into closer relationship with God, ourselves and others — and don’t we need that as much or more than the things we actually pray for!