Powerful Prayer for the Storms of Life
When someone asks how they can be praying for you, what do you say? As a parent grieving or struggling with a child who has mental illness or addiction, prayers can be powerful. The knowledge that someone is remembering you and your family in prayer gives comfort and help us to feel that we are not alone. Scripture tells us that prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective (James 5:16).
Do You Know What to Pray For?
Sometimes we have specific needs that we can ask for, but sometimes we don’t know what to even pray for ourselves. Some of the most beautiful and powerful prayers we can pray for ourselves or for others are found in the writings of Paul. Here are a couple of my favorites:
I pray that God will use His Spirit to give you power from the riches of His glory to make the person inside you strong. Then, through believing in Christ, he will live in your hearts. You will have your roots and foundation in love. Then you and all of the holy people will be able to completely understand the meaning of Christ’s love – how wide it is, how high it is, and how deep it is. It goes beyond knowing, but you will know it. Then you will be filled with the totality of God.
Glory to God! He is able to do so much more than we can even think of or ask for. God uses the power that is working in us.
Ephesians 3:16-20
…we haven’t stopped praying for you. We ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of what God wants, with all kinds of wisdom and spiritual understanding. We want you to live as if you were worthy of the Lord Jesus. Please him in every way. Produce the fruit of good deeds. Grow in your knowledge of God. Be strong! Have all of the strength of His glorious power. Then you will be able to endure anything. You will learn patience with joy.
Colossians 1:9-11
I love that Paul is praying for these fellow Christians to know the love of God more fully. When we are hurting, feeling overwhelmed, or just exhausted, knowing God’s love for us is so important! To understand His love when we don’t understand the why of our child’s illness, to understand the person of Christ when we can’t understand what is happening in our own lives, and to be filled with God’s power when we feel powerless – I can think of no better prayer.
Maybe you need this prayer today. Maybe your child needs this prayer.
God Knows What We Need
We don’t always have the answer to the question of “What can I pray for?”. Pray for this new medicine to work, for my child to be willing to try this new mode of treatment, or for their healing – sometimes we think we know what is the best. We aren’t always right. God has the big picture and He knows what you truly need, not just in a physical sense, but also in a spiritual.
Sometimes we do have very real and solid needs to be prayed for and those specific requests are good. But sometimes it is better to simply ask for God’s wisdom, for His Spirit to work in our lives, to know His love, and, yes, even to experience His joy as we learn to patiently endure!
All verses taken from The Great Book: The New Testament in Plain English
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