{"id":9193,"date":"2015-07-01T05:40:48","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T10:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/?p=9193"},"modified":"2015-07-01T05:41:13","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T10:41:13","slug":"told-prayers-weak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/told-prayers-weak\/","title":{"rendered":"What I told her when she said her prayers were so weak"},"content":{"rendered":"

“It’s not all up to you.”<\/em><\/p>\n

She\u00a0had given\u00a0me a burdensome list of prayer needs.\u00a0 Her husband was battling a terminal illness, her daughter\u00a0was in a bad situation, the grandchildren were at risk, and she herself felt so far away from the Lord.<\/p>\n

I’m breaking no confidence in sharing this.\u00a0 First, she gave permission, and second, her needs are not unlike a dozen people whom I know. There is a lot of this going around.\u00a0 A few minutes ago, a mother whom I do not know, but who found us on the internet, wrote with a similar list of prayer needs.<\/p>\n

She asked me to pray for her. She\u00a0did\u00a0not ask for\u00a0advice. However, while I am indeed lifting her needs in prayer, the next best\u00a0gift I can give\u00a0is to encourage her own praying.’<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I said seven things to her.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One.<\/strong> “There is something about a mother’s prayers. For reasons I don’t understand, they seem to carry a great deal of weight in Heaven, perhaps more than others. I can’t prove it; I just believe it.”<\/p>\n

“I want you to pray.”<\/p>\n

Two.<\/strong>\u00a0 “Several times a day,\u00a0 just drop to your knees, even if it’s just for 10 seconds.”<\/p>\n

Three<\/strong>.\u00a0 “If you don’t say anything else to the Lord, just call out the names of your loved ones for whom you are praying.”<\/p>\n

I do this myself.\u00a0 I might say, “Lord, Neil, Julie, Grant, Abby and\u00a0Erin; Marty, Misha, Darilyn and Jack; Jinoke, Leah, Jessica and JoAnne! Thank you!”<\/p>\n

Four<\/strong>. “I want you to turn to Romans 8:26 and read it again and again and again.”<\/p>\n

“In the same way, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit Himself intercedes\u00a0for us\u00a0with groanings too deep for words.” <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Five.<\/strong>\u00a0 “Notice two big things here:\u00a0 a)\u00a0 You don’t pray well, and b) the Holy Spirit picks up the slack. So, it’s not all up to you.”<\/p>\n

Six<\/strong>.\u00a0 “You will notice that verse 34 of the same chapter says the risen-and-ascended Lord Jesus intercedes for us at the ‘right hand of God.’<\/p>\n

The Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus both are interceding for us.\u00a0 How good is that!<\/p>\n

Our accusing heart says our prayers are so weak they do no good and God would not possibly hear us.\u00a0 The heart is wrong.<\/p>\n

Seven.<\/strong>\u00a0 The Lord is on our side.\u00a0 Verse 31 of this chapter says, “If (since) God is for us, who can be against us?” And then, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?”<\/p>\n

The Lord takes our side.\u00a0 He wants us to do well in life.\u00a0 Both the Holy Spirit and the\u00a0Glorified Son are interceding for us in Heaven.<\/p>\n

Verse 26 contains another treasure in the word translated “helps.”\u00a0 The Greek word is synantilambanomai, <\/em>a compound word made up of syn <\/em>meaning “together, with,” anti <\/em>meaning “in front of, opposite to,” and lambanomai, <\/em>a form of the verb “to lift.”<\/p>\n

When we offer up our\u00a0weak prayers, the Holy Spirit gets on the other side of our burden and together with us, gets under it and lifts.<\/p>\n

Is He ever wonderful or what?<\/p>\n

Think of a man trying to pull a cross-cut saw by himself.\u00a0 Or a woman trying to make a bed alone. But\u00a0with a friend on the other side, the work goes so much better.<\/p>\n

You’re not alone in your praying.\u00a0 The Lord is encouraging your prayer, hearing your prayer, receiving your prayer, and then turning it into far more than anything you ever dreamed of.<\/p>\n

My Lord is praying with me.<\/p>\n

We are praying a duet.<\/p>\n

And so….<\/p>\n

The question\u00a0then becomes\u00a0not whether the Lord hears or cares\u00a0when we pray. The\u00a0question is not even do we believe strongly enough. The fact is we believe weakly and pray poorly. But that’s all right.\u00a0\u00a0Mustard-seed faith is plenty\u00a0sufficient, according to our Lord (Luke 17:6).<\/p>\n

So, the only question is Will You Pray?<\/p>\n

Will. You. Pray?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“It’s not all up to you.” She\u00a0had given\u00a0me a burdensome list of prayer needs.\u00a0 Her husband was battling a terminal illness, her daughter\u00a0was in a bad situation, the grandchildren were at risk, and she herself felt so far away from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9193"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9204,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9193\/revisions\/9204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}