Social media has changed our lives. We have become “Facebook” people. We will share all of the good stuff, but we often hide what is really going on or the hard things we are dealing with in our lives. We often don’t feel comfortable sharing what we are really dealing with – either because we don’t think anyone will care or we don’t want to burden others with our challenges.
Have you ever listened to someone’s conversation? It goes like this: “How are you doing?” “Great, how about yourself?” And then they move on to the next thing. When you ask someone how they are doing, do you expect a response? What would you do if they said, “I’m doing terrible?” Now you are stuck – how do you respond to act like you wanted to hear it, but maybe you really didn’t. Or when you meet with someone at a social gathering, you ask about their family, work, etc. and most of the time the response is everything with them is going great? Work is going great, family is awesome, their marriage couldn’t be better and life is good. But, if you change the conversation by asking “How can I pray for you?”, things start to change. All of sudden you learn that the job is frustrating, the kids are going off the deep end and they are struggling in their marriage.
Why is asking someone if you can pray for them so impactful that it can change conversations? I think there are three reasons:
- Prayer is a spiritual language that brings God into the conversation, which makes people be more honest in what they will share.
- Prayer shows a willingness to listen and listening is a commitment of time.
- Prayer shows you care about them. When you bring God into the conversation and give people freely of your time, you demonstrate that you really care about them and make them a higher priority than yourself.
Now before you ask this question, be sure you are committed to doing the following:
- Listen – Take the time to listen and understand their need.
- Pray – Pray with them in the moment and then commit to praying for the prayer request until it is answered.
- Remember – Write the prayer request down. This will help you to remember to keep praying. Remember to ask about their prayer request the next time you see them or send them a message or text to let them know you are thinking about them.
If we all take a little bit more time to invest in others and show them we genuinely care by being willing to ask about their prayer requests, commit to pray for them regularly and remember, I believe we can make an impact on becoming a more loving and caring world! It is also an amazing way to see God working. You get to be part of watching God answer prayers in the lives of others.