What to Do When Someone Says They're Praying for You

Ken Brantley was a young doctor who had gone to

Liberia to care for people nobody else would touch. Then

the disease he was fighting got into his own body. The test came

back positive for Ebola, and everyone knew what that usually

meant. grew weaker by the day. His body was shutting down, and

the treatments were a long shot at best. Thousands of miles from

home, shut inside an isolation ward, he had every reason to

feel alone. The truth was, he had never been less alone in his

life. He just couldn't see it yet. We'll come back to what he

couldn't see, but first,

Welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. Okay,

so I'm describing myself here. Somebody tells me they're

praying for me. I say, I appreciate that, and I'm already

moving on to what's next. I don't mean to brush it off. It

simply comes out as a reflex before I've taken in what the

person just told me. And that man may have been on his knees

for me that morning. He may have given me five, ten, or twenty

minutes of his life that I'll never see, and I gave him four

words on my way past him in the hallway. I'm working on that one.

Somebody tells you they're praying for you, and you don't

quite know what to do with it. You mumble a thank you. It feels

awkward, and you couldn't tell anybody why. Maybe part of you

wonders whether they mean it, or whether it's the church version

of saying, take care. And maybe beneath that awkwardness,

there's usually a thought you would never say out loud. You

aren't sure it does anything. But the Apostle Paul saw it

differently. Here's 2 Corinthians 1, verse 11. And you

are helping us by praying for us. Then many people will give

thanks, because God has graciously answered so many

prayers for our safety. Look at that verb, helping. You are

helping us by praying for us. Paul writes that a few sentences

after telling the Corinthians he had been crushed by pressure in

Asia to the point that he despaired of life itself. He

came through it, and when he accounts for how that happened,

he puts the prayers of a church in Corinth on the list. Those

people were hundreds of miles from him. They couldn't send a

doctor or get him out of anything. What they could do was

pray, and Paul counted it as a help that arrived. And this is

the Apostle Paul. If anybody could have gotten by on his own

access to God, it was probably that man. He asked for their

prayers anyway. And then he turned around and told them

their prayers had worked. Then look at the back half of that

verse. Many people will give thanks, because God has

graciously answered so many prayers. What Paul does is he

sees a circle, a crowd prays, and God answers. That same crowd

ends up thanking him for it. The person being prayed for is the

one part of something much bigger than his own situation.

So here's what to do when somebody says it to you. Thank

them out loud and mean it while it's coming out of your mouth.

That's the first step. And many of us skip right past it. Then,

if the moment allows for it, give them something to aim at.

Tell them a particular thing. Would you pray about my

daughter's situation at school? Or pray that I get better sleep

this week? When you hand somebody a particular thing, you

turn a kindness into a partnership. And when God moves

on it, go back and tell that person. That's the back half of

Paul's verse doing its work. While Kent lay something he

couldn't feel from his bed was happening across the world.

Thousands, maybe millions of people who had never met him

were praying for him by name. Whole churches and total

strangers were lifting up one sick doctor. He recovered and

walked out of that hospital. He stood before the cameras with

tears in his eyes and told everyone that he serves a

faithful God who answers prayers and that he could never thank

them enough for carrying him through. A world had prayed for

one sick doctor and that doctor came home. Look at what he said

he learned afterward. He was too sick to know. The praying went

on whether he could feel it or not and it went on by name from

people who would never meet him. Brantley was careful about this

when he told it. He thanked the doctors and the experimental

drug in the same breath as the prayers and then he called his

survival a direct answer to thousands of prayers. He never

set one against the other. That's the part to hold on to

when somebody tells you that they're praying for you and you

can't feel a thing changing. Brantley couldn't feel it either.

Here's today's challenge. The next time somebody tells you

they're praying for you, stop walking, look at them, and say

thank you like you heard it. Then give them one particular

thing to pray about. It helps when someone has something

specific to pray. And do one thing more. Think of somebody

you've told you were praying for and go pray for them right now

before you forget again. Then send them a line letting them

know you did it. Father, thank you for the people who pray for

us when we'll never know about it. Teach us to receive that the

way Paul did as help that arrives whether we can feel it

or not. And forgive us for the quick thank yous we hand out on

our way past somebody. Bring people to mind today who need

praying for and let some of them find out that somebody did. In

Jesus' name, amen. If this episode encouraged you today,

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makes a real difference in someone else's day. Thanks for

joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, Paul

called it help, and he meant that word. When somebody tells

you they're praying for you, stop and thank them, and then

tell them what to pray for. Come back next time for more

encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until

then, God bless and have a great day.