The Kindness Of Prayer

“No man can do me a truer kindness in this world than to pray for me.”

How often do we tell someone “I’ll be praying for you,” in an off-hand sort of way? We might be well intentioned, but somewhere in the busyness of life we drop the ball. We either quickly ask God to be with that person in a special way or we decide to pray later and end up forgetting about it altogether. Then we hear that name again on Sunday morning during prayer time and cringe inside.

Charles Spurgeon was a praying man himself. He had seen what God would do in the life of a man who spent time on his knees, so this quote came from experience as the person praying. But he also knew exactly what prayer could do in his own life when other people prayed for him. Prayer isn’t the least you can do ... it’s the most powerful thing you can do.

You can be nice and bake a cake, drop off a meal or put a card in the mail. But true kindness stops whatever they’re doing, enters the throne room of heaven and takes that person to the Lord in prayer. It may seem like something small in the grand scheme of things - it only takes a few minutes to pray - but it can have the greatest, most last effect in another person’s life.

Danny and I are blessed to be part of a praying church. When someone in our church family says they’re praying for you, it’s the truth. We pray together, we pray individually, we ask for prayer and we praise the Lord for answered prayer. The length of our church prayer list and the frequency of emails containing prayer requests are proof that people trust us to pray for them. We have, we do and we will because it is the greatest kindness we can do in this life.

What does your prayer life look like today? Is it constant, vibrant and flourishing? Or have you given priority to other things instead of time talking with God? I pray that in the week to come we will all have a renewed sense of purpose in our prayer life, bringing those we love to the Lord. This great kindness can change everything.