I wonder how many times over the years I’ve said, “I’m praying for you” when the sad reality is: I’m really not. How easy it is to throw out comments like, “I’ll pray for you,” or “We should go out for coffee,” or even “I love you” and never actually mean it.
As harsh as it sounds, I think sometimes “I’m praying for you” can be synonymous with “I’m too busy to deal with you right now” or “I actually have better things to do” or, “Shame, sorry to hear that, but…” It’s tragic—such a powerful, beautiful thing—quickly and easily just becoming yet another Christian cliché.
It’s like the spiritual version of those Facebook comments “Sending hugs and good thoughts,” or “Wishing good vibes”. A nice thought, but empty and meaningless at the end of the day, unless that praying becomes reality.
I truly believe in the incredible power of prayer (John 15:7, Matthew 21:22), but that exists in more than the placating phrase. That power exists in actually uttering those prayers to our all-powerful God, in crying out to the omnipresent, omnipotent Holy Spirit within us.
What if we truly mean and actually live out all the good things we say? What if we all took the time to spend ourselves to invest in the lives of one another? Don’t you think the world could start to look very different?
So my challenge today is not to say “I’ll be praying for you” less, but instead to keep saying it more and more, but also to put those words into action. That I’d tell my friends that I’ll pray for them and that it would be more than fleeting words that I forget about as soon as I walk away or put my phone down.
We are called to pray for one another (James 5:16, 1 Timothy 2:1). We are called to love one another (John 15:12). Let’s actively choose to live that out well, starting by praying right now.
“Love is unselfishly choosing for another’s highest good.” - C.S. Lewis
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