They saw her stooped
Praying, they laughed
Little did they know
The power in bended knees
The subtle but undeniable shift
The irresistible transformation
That overtakes both him who prays
And him for whom prayer is offered

Thinking about people who are struggling always pilots me into prayer. Thinking of those who are falling away does nothing less. It gets me praying for my own faith which hasn’t been a pie. If it is this tough for me, how can I think it is any easier on others because they are way up there or far down there?  We deceive ourselves when we assume such and the enemy will exploit any seed of deceit we allow in our hearts, to grow thorns that eventually choke precious faith. Any wonder Paul exhorted that any of us who thinks he is standing should watch closely because there is always something placed in our path to trip us.

As an intercessor, I learned the least and the best we can do when we don’t know what else to do is to pray earnestly. Sometime ago, God asked me to pray for someone I wasn’t excited about, every day for one hour. I wasn’t enthusiastic about that. In fact, I tried to negotiate my way out. “This person is not my business, we’re not even friends. What do they care, why should I care? If I have one extra hour for prayer every day, there are many other things I’d rather be praying about. I don’t even pray for myself every day for that long, why would I want to do it for someone who I really don’t know like that?” But I had to either bow to God’s will in obedience or walk out on Him in disobedience.

As I started praying for the person, it dawned: it is impossible to feel but gracious toward a person we pray extensively for every day. God’s love melts our heart toward the subject of our supplication. In fact, I realized that praying extensively for our offenders could prove an effective cure for anger, unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred and other negative feelings toward others. Pray for them: the harder your feeling toward them, the longer the prayer should be. While many deride prayers, for every believer, there is power in our prayer.

I realized praying for someone in a bad place not only creates room for supernatural intervention in their lives, it also position us to view them with compassion and to be gracious toward them and their plight. More than ever before, the times we live in call for intense prayers. Those who are falling away need our prayer and compassion. It is also needful to pray for those who are out there, unsure about the faith. To pray that those considering Christianity are not discouraged by these renunciations. More so, it is expedient that we pray for those who are standing though they are struggling, tripping, even falling. The beautiful thing I learned about prayer in all these years is that it changes us and it changes people and things we can’t change.
To be continued.

Glory!