The Power of Prayer

One of the advantages of my time here in rehab is that I have more time to myself instead of being involved in the homeschooling of my grandsons. So I’ve been using that time to spend time in prayer. I’m not doing anything different except for the amount of time. For several years I’ve had a routine for organizing my prayers that I’d like to share.

I have several lists on my smartphone to organize the names of people whom I pray for. Here they are – not in any priority order:

 

Shepherding Group

Although I transitioned from being an active elder at church to elder emeritus status last year (after 40 years), one thing that I retained was my shepherding group of 20 families. I not only regularly pray for them, but I try to touch base with them at church each week. I also periodically reach out to them via email asking if there are any specific things that I can pray for.

Praying Around the World

There are a number of missionaries from our church scattered around the world. I also have friends in a number of countries whom I have made over the years. I’ve organized them by geography, and I pray for one area of the world each day. So Monday is Europe, Tuesday is Africa, then South Asia, Southeast/East Asia, Caribbean and South America. There are 2-3 families in each of these. But concentrating on one geography each day means that I can pray specifically for each family regularly.

Long-term Prayers

I keep a list of 6-10 individuals who have long-term issues – things like physical situations or family situations. By putting them on this list I’m trying to not forget them. There is a human tendency to pray when we first hear about something but then forget about it after a while and this list keeps these individuals in front of me. Some of the people on this list I’ve had for 4-5 years.

Church Prayer Chain

Our church sends out a prayer chain twice a week. Some of these prayer requests are for people in the congregation and others are for family members that they are concerned about, i.e., please pray for xxxx’s sister-in-law. I generally only like to pray for people I know so I can put a face to each prayer, so rather than pray for these latter types, I pray for the church member to know how to work with their relative.

Family

Last, but certainly not least, I pray for my family – wife, children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews, etc. I don’t have these in a list as that’s not needed. But we can’t forget to pray for those who are closest to us.

 

There are many people who pray for things that do not fall into the above categories. For example, I’ve heard prayers like “Pray for our country, our president, our elected officials,” or “Pray for such-and-such organization.” If someone is leading a prayer like this, then I will certainly participate, but I do not put these on any of my lists. I want to be able to visualize the face of the person I’m praying for and to make my prayers personal. There are others who have other practices and I’m fine with that, but this is my focus.

There are a lot of benefits to prayer and there is power in prayer. Even if God has other ideas and we do not understand the eventual outcome, prayer helps to align us with God. And looking to Him is always a good thing!