“Because of this, since the day we heard about you, we haven’t stopped praying for you and asking for you to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, with all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” (Colossians 1:9, CEB)
I doubt there’s a Buzzfeed “Here Are 10 Things Your Pastor Probably Says To You” list out there, but, if there was, I would imagine “I’ll pray for you” (or some version of this) is right up there. (“Can you do me a favor?” can’t be far behind).
A pastor friend of mine, though, posted this question on Facebook the other day: Do we actually follow through? He confessed that he didn’t always do so. It’s not that he doesn’t believe in prayer or that he’s blatantly lying to someone, but sometimes you say those things and, well, you forget. (By the way, I’m neither confirming nor denying that I’ve done the same thing). What’s a person who believes in prayer to do?
I put this on my Instagram page the other day: the agenda for a meeting on the back of a Starbucks receipt. I tweeted it and received a response from Sister Anne Flanagan aka the Nunblogger: “I have a couple of prayer requests people slipped to me on the back of fast food receipts. I keep them in my prayerbook.” I love reading Sister Anne’s tweets and thought, hmmm, a prayer book. Maybe if I kept a prayer book with me, I definitely wouldn’t forget. I tried to do that for a while, but, to be honest, it seemed like whenever I said, “I’ll pray for you,” I didn’t have it with me. I’ve tried creating something on my phone, but the last thing I need is to use my phone for one more thing. Finally, it dawned on me. I created an agenda on a receipt. Why not prayers? I usually carry at least one receipt in my wallet and I nearly always have my wallet on me so what you see above is my first prayer receipt.
I don’t begin to fully understand the mysteries of praying for someone else. This is what I believe, though, and experience: When I hold this person up to God, when I imagine this person in Christ’s presence, I trust that something is happening for this person. I’m not in the business of dictating what that something is, but I trust that the person is in the shadow of God’s love. I also believe (and experience) that something happens in me as the pray-er, as well. It’s not rosary beads, but I hope (and pray!) that my receipts will have the same effect.