There are occasions when I’m so overwhelmed or grieved, I can’t pray for myself. I really feel like I’m drowning. I need so desperately to see Jesus together with his hand out above the water, however I can’t. That is after I textual content my prayer group.
5 years in the past, when the world started to spin in new methods round us, I began this textual content thread with a couple of of my closest pals. These ladies didn’t even know one another beforehand. However we’re related within the Spirit. We needed to maintain our eyes on Jesus, so I created a textual content group of particular ladies I do know love Jesus. When life acquired to be an excessive amount of, we merely texted the thread, Pray for me.
Typically we now have the wherewithal to offer a bit context, if we want prayers for well being, work, household, marriage, or anxiousness. However generally it’s simply an SOS on the market into the digital world after we can’t acquire focus.
There are occasions when all we are able to do is ship a bit prayer emoji to let one another know we’re praying. There are different occasions when one among us will kind out the proper prayer or Scripture verse that speaks to the second. Inside one another we really feel the physique of Christ in an actual and tangible approach. We all know that somebody helps to hold this burden and heartache with us.
Typically we want greater than a textual content and a prayer emoji, and we choose up the telephone. I do know I can ask these ladies to hope for me on the telephone, and they’ll. And I’ll do the identical for them. Once we wouldn’t have phrases to hope, we are able to hear the phrases of our sister in Christ on the opposite finish of the road, saying all of the issues in our coronary heart, all our frustration and fear, and taking it to Jesus for us.
The prayers of those ladies are such a present, however it’s also a consolation to me that even when I didn’t have them, the Holy Spirit prays for us. As St. Paul tells us, “the Spirit helps us in our weak spot; for we have no idea the way to pray as we ought, however that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for phrases. And God, who searches the guts, is aware of what’s the thoughts of the Spirit, as a result of the Spirit intercedes for the saints in line with the desire of God.” (Romans 8:26–27) Even after we have no idea what to hope, the Spirit prays the proper prayer for us.
I understand how it feels to be on the receiving finish of this present of prayer. The concern and anxiousness it relieves are changed with peace and generally even pleasure. I’ve been providing this to others, and when I’m on the telephone with a pal, and he or she tells me a narrative of her frustrations, I say, “Can I pray for you, proper now? On the telephone?” Not later, not alone time, however there collectively. And we each really feel God’s presence and peace and luxury collectively. We really feel nearer to one another and nearer to our God, who can care for all of it.
What a present.
Picture by Miguelangel Perez on Unsplash.
