I'll be "Praying" for you...

James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. 

For some reason this past month has been filled with prayer requests.   I have had the honor of being entrusted with many of my friends and families innermost needs.  People have come to me asking for prayer, in an attempt to share their burdens.

I've been reading about the power of prayer in Bill Hybel's book Too Busy Not to Pray.  I guess this is why I have been extra sensitive to the area of prayer.  If I'm completely honest, I'll have to admit that prayer has never been of my strong points.  I'm a fan of the tangible...and prayer is something that can't always be counted and measured.  That's hard for me.

For me, it takes hard work to pray fervently.  I have to really build it into my life and "schedule it in my planner" or it frequently gets overlooked.

If you're anything like me, you know that praying for others has the tendency to become a formality.  "I will be praying for you" is always the polite thing to say...but at the end of the day, am I really taking the time pour my petitions before God on the behalf of others?  Am I really putting their needs as a priority in my life?  Am I really believing that when I partner with them in prayer...powerful things will happen?

That's really what it comes down to: our belief in an all Powerful God.  Prayer warriors aren't simply people with a lot of time on their hands- they are people who really believe that the God they serve has the power to change situations and lives, and they are asking Him to.

So before you throw around your offers to pray for others, take a hard look at what you really believe- and ask yourself if your prayer life reflects your theology.  If  not, something's got to change. 

The power to change the lives of others is in our hands- that's something which we should never take lightly.