I am always very encouraged when someone lets me know that they pray for me regularly. I am also very humbled to realize that someone will take the time to boldly go to the King of kings at His throne of grace on my behalf. I am also challenged with the way that I have found myself praying for others.

In college, as I was reading a book called Discovering How To Pray by Hope MacDonald, I was introduced to the concept of “arrow prayers”. These were thoughts and shots aimed heavenward throughout the day as requests came to mind. While these prayers that are lobbed at the Lord can help us pray continually and spontaneously, it can sometimes lead to a prayer life that can be unstructured, bouncing around from one thought or circumstance to the next.

As I read the first part of Colossians, I noticed that Paul said that he “always” prayed for the saints and faithful bretheren in Colossae. In fact he said they “never ceased” praying for them. Then he went on to tell them exactly how they were praying for them. What an encouragement it must have been to the church in Colossae to be bolstered by the specific details of the ways that Paul was going to God’s throne on their behalf.

As I broke apart this prayer piece by piece, it occurred to me that this would be an amazing and weighty way to pray for those that the Lord has placed in my life. While I don’t want my prayers to be ultra-formulaic or ritualistic, there could be some benefit in having a framework of prayer that would be consistent, continual, intentional, and very specific. What great company to be in, to pray like Paul as he prayed for those he cared deeply about. He prayed that they would:

*Be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

*Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, pleasing Him in all respects.

*Bear fruit in every good work and increase in the knowledge of God.

*Be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might.

*Attain all steadfastness and patience, joyously giving thanks to the Father  (who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints of light, who has delivered us from darkness, who has transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,  and who has redeemed us and forgiven us.)

What a weighty way to pray for our kids, our spouses, our parents, our friends, our grandkids, our extended family, our Sunday School teachers and classes…

What changes might we see in their lives? What growth might we see in their hearts as they are walking closely with the Lord. Come to think of it, what a weighty way to pray for myself.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 4th, 2006 at 5:38 am and is filed under Daily Readings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.