Home » Thoughts for the Week » Why “I’ll pray for you” might not always be the right thing to say (27 July)

Why “I’ll pray for you” might not always be the right thing to say (27 July)

“I don’t think that saying ‘I’ll pray for you’ is always the right approach”.

When I heard these words, my jaw dropped, perhaps in the same way that yours is right now! Surprisingly though, the more we talked, the more these words made sense to me.

My wife Tracey and I were talking a few days ago when she shared her ‘I’ll pray for you isn’t always the right approach’  bombshell. We were talking about how we often say this to people who don’t know Jesus yet but it had dawned on Tracey that in some, or perhaps many, cases that helping someone to talk to God for themselves would be a better approach. Put simply:

Why would we just pray on behalf of someone who doesn’t know Jesus yet if we can encourage them to talk to Him for themselves?

Don’t get me wrong, if we do start saying to people ‘have you tried talking with God about that’, we would still pray for them in our own prayer times. Prayer is essential and it is our responsibility and privilege to talk with God about the people who we know and meet. What I am talking about is the opportunity that we have to introduce someone to what prayer is and to encourage them to explore a relationship with God for themselves.

Rather than telling people that they need to decide to know Jesus, we should just help them to know Him instead. As they talk with Him and as we discuss how that is going, their relationship with Jesus will transform and grow.

Thinking about this different approach reminded me of this famous saying:

Give someone a Fish, and You Feed them for a Day.
Teach someone To Fish, and You Feed them for a Lifetime

We have learnt that in giving to the poor, that equipping and empowering people to provide for themselves is more effective than providing directly for them each day. As well as being more effective, there is also the issue of human dignity and of demonstrating equality with our fellow human beings. We may have more money and resources than most people in this world, but that does not make us superior to them!

Are we willing to also apply this principle to our spirutual lives? Will we encourage people to speak to Jesus themselves, rather than implying that they need someone spiritually superior, like us, to do this for them?

I also wonder if this needs to be applied in church life. In many churches there are the few who lead in services, pray for others and do the discipling. We talk about the priesthood of all believers at a church meeting but then appear to put that principle back in its box in our services and in many areas of church life.

In the way our churches are set up, have we unintentionally set up a spiritual hierarchy that causes some to be dependent on others spiritually?

When I am asked to pray in a house where people are saying that they feel an evil presence or are seing things that they would describe as ghosts, one of the things I always do is to encourage them to pray a short prayer. The phrasing I offer them varies, but is something like this:

Jesus, we want your light to shine in this place.
You are bigger than anything else and so we ask you to send the forces of evil away from here
Thankyou that you are always with us. Help us to talk with you more.
Amen

A version I used with a 4 year old who was having nightmares was:

God, thank you that you are bigger than anything else, please keep the monsters away.

That child prayed that prayer every night and slept soundly as a result. They weren’t reliant on my spiritaual experience for their needs, rather they were encountering God and talking with him for themselves.

Do we want people to be spiritually dependent on us or are we willing to do all we can to help them to find fullness of life directly from Jesus?

This latest Thought for the Week has been written by Graeme Ross, EBA Regional Minister