I’ll never forget the conversation. One of our senior adults who had been married over 50 years was meeting with several young ladies in the first year or two of their marriages.
She told me, “I asked them, ‘How do you pray for your husbands?’” And they just looked at me.
“You don’t pray for your husbands? Well, that’s the problem. You have to be the prayer warrior for him and your family!” “I couldn't believe it,” she went on. “How can a wife not pray for her husband?”
And how can a husband not pray for his wife?
How can parents not pray for their children?
Or neighbors pray for their lost friends?
Or pastors not pray for their churches?
Or churches not pray for their minsters?
I’m finding out that most people are hypocritical about prayer. Here’s what I mean: most of us talk a lot about praying but when we look at our day, we see most of us spend very little time in prayer.
Why? Because most of us don’t think prayer is doing anything. We are biased toward action. “Why pray,” we’ll say, “when we can do something?”
Knowing what to do comes only in prayer. Aligning what we do with what God is doing creates a spiritual synergy that geometrically expands the impact of our action. When you pray, the love of Christ fills your life and begins to flow through you.
Then, a husband can love his wife in ways he never has before.
A wife can love her husband.
Parents will love their children.
And neighbors will love each other.
All in the power of the Risen Christ… a love that is stronger than death, is found only in prayer.
So, here’s the challenge: Examine your own life.
- Do you talk more about prayer than you actually pray?
- How can you change that?
- Who are you praying for… really praying for?
