I was praying for people earlier this evening, people who don't know Jesus. My prayer started out something like this:
Please give them a desire to know you. Send people into their livesThat was the general idea. May they want to be Christians. But then I stopped mid-thought.
who love you, and create in them a desire to give their lives to you.
Is that really how I should pray for someone's salvation? I mean, honestly, that's not a bad prayer at all. To have a desire for God, to want to be saved...that seems valid.
But is that truly the root of it all?
Our prayers...or mine, anyway...for the salvation of others tends to fit right into our tendency to create a feel-good Jesus. Yes, they should desire salvation. But when I pray like that, I think the idea behind my words paints a picture of want for the sake of happy and comfortable.
I shifted my prayer to something like this:
God, show them how their sin seperates them from You. Teach them what Jesus did for them so that they can understand their need for salvation. May they choose new life in You.
Thoughts?
2 comments:
You're after the better thing for them either way, salvation, right? I think your second prayer reflects more of that bottom line -- it's easy for us to dismiss something that seems like one good choice among many. But if convicted of sin and separation from God? Seems tougher to blow it off. And so yeah, that prayer may be more of a "whatever it takes, God" kind of thing. But either way, I think He'll honor the prayer and work to draw the person to Him one way or the other. (That is, not as though the focus of our prayer would limit Him in some way -- I think it does more to focus our efforts than His.) Thinking out loud, incoherent as usual...
I like both your previous prayer and your latter. I think your previous is where most of us start when we pray for a person's salvation. I think praying more detailed prayers like your latter come as our desire to really see them saved deepens. I started praying for someone I had to work with out of my frustration with the person. Praying for their salvation became a daily practice. But I found the more I prayed for that, my heart towards that person started to change and my prayer focus turned from wanting to see them saved because I didn't want to always be frustrated with them to wanting to see them saved for their benefit, for their eternal existance. I'd start asking God to cover their ears against the lies of the devil so that they could only hear His voice of truth. To put a guard on their tongue and lips so that they could not curse His name but if His name is on their tongue, that it would only be in praise to Him. I've noticed that person hasn't misued His name hardly ever since I started that prayer.
I don't think there's a wrong way to pray because I think if our motivation isn't right, that changes the more we pray, the more we open ourselves up to God. We start where we're at. I think when we pray, regardless of who or what we pray for or about, we are opening ourselves up for God to work in us as well. And we can not help but be changed. But we have to spend time in prayer, the more we pray, the more He not only works through us in the lives of others, but the more He will work in us to grow us up and strengthen us in Him, to conform us to His image so that our prayers then for others are guided by Him so that we are then praying in His will for the things He wants to accomplish and in the way He wants to accomplish them.
So I think of your change in prayer to be God working in you, shaping you more into His image and drawing your mind and heart more into His mind and heart so that what you pray is what He would pray, so that your prayers become more effective because your will has matched up with His.
Hopefully that made some sense. :o)
Post a Comment