Pray Now
…be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
Ephesians 6:18
We’ve all done it. At least I have…and all too often, I’m afraid. I get word of someone’s point of need either through conversation or social media. And I respond with, “I’ll be praying for you” or “You’ll be in my prayers” or “Standing with you in prayer.”
It sounds so good, but that’s the problem. It only sounds good. It doesn’t really do any good.
Why? Because soon thereafter I’m on to something else – some other task or some other responsibility. And the promised prayer never happens. As a result, the potential benefit of that prayer is never realized.
Quite frankly, I’m pretty disappointed in myself for not keeping my word and for letting my friends down. And for years I’ve vowed to do better – but I don’t.
So, recently, I’ve changed my strategy. Rather than promising to pray in the future, I’ve determined to pray in the present. In short, to pray now. In fact, that’s how I’ve been responding to texts or voicemails when I receive word of a point of need: “Praying now.”
This past week I had several occasions to do that. A good friend contacted me as well as a few other brothers to pray about the untimely death of the pastor of his home church.
Every single guy responded with words of support – including me. However, I also added, “Praying now.” And I did. I stopped what I was doing, bowed my head, focused my thoughts, and offered my intercession.
The same thing happened when Gwen heard from a friend and ministry supporter about a major decision that she and her husband were facing. Gwen responded to the woman, “Dave and I will be praying.”
However, when Gwen told me about the situation, I looked at her and said, “Let’s pray right now.” And we did. We paused what we were doing to intercede for this couple. And it felt so good to do that.
Often when Gwen gets texts asking for prayer she'll even respond with, "This is what I'm praying for you..." And then she verbalizes her prayer in a sentence or two.
I can't say that we are consistent enough to call this a new habit yet, but at least it's a starting point...and something we hope to continue.
May I encourage you to try it as well? It doesn’t take a lot of time to pray in the moment. It just takes the discipline to do so.
And you know what? When you do, something else happens. In taking the action to “pray now,” for some reason it underscores the need in my memory. And I find myself praying at other times for the situation.
Friends, when people ask us for prayer, they often do so without giving it a lot of thought…or even a lot of hope that those prayers will really be offered. But what if we began to change that wishful thinking to real expectation because of our assurance that we were going to pray now?
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