The World of Prayer IV: people.

Thursday, July 9, 2009. A world of prayer - for one week we want to focus on prayer. Today we come to “prayer for people”.

Everyone of us is surrounded by people. We might be sitting in a class, in school or a university. We are working with colleagues. We are living together with family, with children or with parents. We meet people where ever we go, in supermarkets, on the roads, in the cinema or when we do sports. People are our life, they are everywhere, they are around us from morning to evening.

Since God is everywhere, it makes sense to pray for people. It is a basic idea to pray for the people around me, for the people I meet, the people I work with, the people I live with. In fact, God wants us to pray for each other, he wants me to pray for all the others.

Prayer for people has effects on different levels. First of all: if I pray to God to bless and help someone, he will do this. He listens to my prayer. He will help. So there is a powerful and long-term effect, since God does not think and act with results only affecting one day. He always thinks long-term. He is an eternal God, a God who wants us to live eternally.

But there are many more effects. If you pray and ask for God's blessing for someone, you cannot remain distant and angry about him. Praying changes your own attitude towards persons. Pray your for your enemies, and you cannot remain an enemy. They will not remain enemies as well then - it is just not possible in the long run. Prayer changes our world on different levels! All of them are important.

Prayer for other people changes our relation to them. If we pray for someone on a regular basis, it is like building a little network, an invisible link. This link is powerful, it will change the future. God is part of this link, and he will care and guide and lead the relation to something useful.

I started regular prayer for other people many years ago now. After I started and experienced the effects on myself and on other people, I never wanted to stop again. It is an encouter with the Lord in prayer, and with many other people I pray for. Today I pray for around 300 to 500 people on a regular basis. I ask God to help them, to guide them, to be with them and fill them with his Holy Spirit. And there are numerous experiences where I realize the power of prayer on its different levels every day. If you do not do it on a regular basis, start it today. Pray for the people around you, and your (and their) life will change deeply! ... more texts