Jeremiah 6-8
1 Timothy 5
“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” Ephesians 6:18
Sometimes when we think of prayer, we have an image in our mind like the scene from the movie The Wizard of Oz. When the cowardly lion came into the presence of the great and mighty Oz, who is projected with a booming voice and smoke all around, the lion had to please and plead. This is not the image of what prayer is in Scripture. We actually come into the presence of God the Father who invites us to come and find mercy and help in our time of need.
Something that we do at my (Sandra Ryan’s) house after we share a meal together is to go around the table and say, “One prayer for you. One prayer for someone else.” What does this mean? Everyone gets to say one prayer request for themselves and another prayer request for someone else.
The interesting thing is that we often have people who do not know Jesus sitting around our table or people who do know Jesus but still do not know the joy and privilege of praying. Sometimes people will say, “Well, I don’t know what to pray for” or “I’ve never prayed before.” Then I’ll tell them, “That’s okay. You can just let us know what you would like prayer for and we’ll pray for you. We’ll pray with you.” What is happening here is that people are actually learning how to pray. It also creates such beautiful opportunities to have some good conversation, but the real beauty of this exercise is that it teaches and reminds us of the truth that there is no sincere prayer that is actually only about you, but every prayer is also about you. There is no prayer that is only about someone else, but every sincere prayer should always be about others as well.
For those of us reading this devotion right now, if we could take out a notebook, a piece of paper or our smart phone, write out a prayer for ourselves and a prayer for someone else—“One prayer for you. One prayer for someone else.” The prayer for ourselves could be something as simple as “I wish I have more patience” or “I’m really concerned about my finances” or “I’m heading into a new career.” The prayer for someone else could be for a person in our family, a person going through an illness, or a people group struggling from war or natural disasters” Whatever we are facing, we are not alone and neither is the person or the people we are praying for.
May we take a moment now to say the prayer for ourselves and the prayer for someone.
Dear God, thank You for who You are. I pray for You to continually work mightily in my life and for my loved ones to be blessed by You.
1 Timothy 5
“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” Ephesians 6:18
Sometimes when we think of prayer, we have an image in our mind like the scene from the movie The Wizard of Oz. When the cowardly lion came into the presence of the great and mighty Oz, who is projected with a booming voice and smoke all around, the lion had to please and plead. This is not the image of what prayer is in Scripture. We actually come into the presence of God the Father who invites us to come and find mercy and help in our time of need.
Something that we do at my (Sandra Ryan’s) house after we share a meal together is to go around the table and say, “One prayer for you. One prayer for someone else.” What does this mean? Everyone gets to say one prayer request for themselves and another prayer request for someone else.
The interesting thing is that we often have people who do not know Jesus sitting around our table or people who do know Jesus but still do not know the joy and privilege of praying. Sometimes people will say, “Well, I don’t know what to pray for” or “I’ve never prayed before.” Then I’ll tell them, “That’s okay. You can just let us know what you would like prayer for and we’ll pray for you. We’ll pray with you.” What is happening here is that people are actually learning how to pray. It also creates such beautiful opportunities to have some good conversation, but the real beauty of this exercise is that it teaches and reminds us of the truth that there is no sincere prayer that is actually only about you, but every prayer is also about you. There is no prayer that is only about someone else, but every sincere prayer should always be about others as well.
For those of us reading this devotion right now, if we could take out a notebook, a piece of paper or our smart phone, write out a prayer for ourselves and a prayer for someone else—“One prayer for you. One prayer for someone else.” The prayer for ourselves could be something as simple as “I wish I have more patience” or “I’m really concerned about my finances” or “I’m heading into a new career.” The prayer for someone else could be for a person in our family, a person going through an illness, or a people group struggling from war or natural disasters” Whatever we are facing, we are not alone and neither is the person or the people we are praying for.
May we take a moment now to say the prayer for ourselves and the prayer for someone.
Dear God, thank You for who You are. I pray for You to continually work mightily in my life and for my loved ones to be blessed by You.
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