Day 45 - Issue 26
1 Timothy 2:1 NLT
'I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them.'
In prayer I must confess a bias. Pain, disappointment or challenges faced by family and close friends impacts me more deeply than the horrors of war and famine. It’s not that I lack compassion but that I am emotionally and psychologically invested in friends and family. In prayer I bring a mixture of inside knowledge and personal agenda. Nothing wrong, but I am far from impartial.
My personal investment in family and friends can prevent me from getting beyond my immediate and specific request and rob me of perspective. When my daughter was seriously ill as a toddler, I empathised with her pain to the extent it drowned out all other sounds and became my priority above all others.
It’s a timely reminder that we are to pray for all people and ask God to help them. The character of neighbour love is that it extends to all of humanity. I am to pray from the heart of God which does not differentiate between my child and yours. So here is the great joy and power of intercession; I take my place in carrying people to God in prayer regardless of the degree to which I know them or not.
Now in my morning prayer when world events pop up on my phone I take a moment to present them to God. I do not move into specifics, for I only know what my preference is. I take time to hold them by name before God and give thanks for them while my intercession is the act of naming and holding them in God’s presence.
God knows their ‘need’ and Jesus gives us the Lord’s Prayer as the most potent intercessory prayer we can use. We can also be reassured because we too have someone interceding for us before God and that is, of course, Jesus (Hebrews 7:25). So no matter my prayer, Jesus is already carrying me before God 24/7. All we need to do is pray as we can and leave the rest to God.
QUESTION: In what way do you pray for “all people”?
PRAYER: Lord, I pray for the nations of this world, that they may know you and serve you in the cause of peace and justice.
