Devotional Monday: Pray for Your Friends

I can't stress enough how important it is to pray for your friends. If your not praying for your friends who is? Your friends need you! Over the past 4.5 years I have been so grateful to have friends who are willing to pray for me. Even more grateful that I don't have to ask them to. Sometimes I feel so needy when I ask my friends to pray for me as often as I sometimes do. I'm thankful that no matter how many times in a week I ask for prayer, I know that my friends are going to pray for me. Are you that kind of friend? I figure that if I need prayer as much as I do, my friends need it too.

I have to say that there is only one thing better than friends who will pray for you when you ask, and that is friends who pray for you when you haven't asked. It's warms my heart when my friends ask if they can pray for me about anything. Especially since my friends live far away. It reminds me that they are there and that they do care about me even when we don't get to talk very often. Plus it provides an opportunity for community. It allows friendships to grow through the sharing of vulnerabilities. Sharing prayer requests with our friends also cultivates our relationship with God. Friends who pray together, stay together -- because they are committed to one another, they are willing to dig around in the other persons dirt and help them out of it.

oh, and by the way it's biblical...

Job 42 (The VOICE)

Job answered the Eternal One.

Job: I know You can do everything;
        nothing You do can be foiled or frustrated.
    You asked,
        “Who is this that conceals counsel with empty words void of knowledge?”
    And now I see that I spoke of—but did not comprehend—
        great wonders that are beyond me. I didn’t know.
    You said, “Hear Me now, and I will speak.
        I’ll be asking the questions, and you will supply the answers.”
    Before I knew only what I had heard of You,
        but now I have seen You.
    Therefore I realize the truth:
        I disavow and mourn all I have said
        and repent in dust and ash.

After the Eternal had spoken these words to Job, He turned and spoke to Eliphaz from Teman.

Eternal One: My anger is burning against you and your two friends because you have not spoken rightly of Me, as My servant Job has. So now, gather your friends and bring seven bulls and seven rams. Then go to My servant Job, make a burnt offering for yourselves, and he will pray for you. I will accept his prayer. Despite the fact that you have not spoken rightly of Me, as My servant Job did, I will not deal with you according to your foolish ways.

So Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuhah, and Zophar from Naamath went and did as the Eternal commanded, and He accepted Job’s prayer for them.

The Eternal restored the fortunes of Job after he prayed for his friends; He even doubled the wealth he had before. All of his brothers and sisters, along with those he had known earlier, came and shared meals with him at his house. They sympathized with him and consoled him regarding the great distress the Eternal had brought on him. Each guest gave him a sum of money and each, a golden ring. The Eternal One blessed the last part of Job’s life even more than the first part.

Here is an excerpt from Matthew Henry's Commentary on verse 10...

when he was praying for his friends, praying over his sacrifice which he offered for them. Mercy did not return when he was disputing with his friends, no, not though he had right on his side, but when he was praying for them; for God is better served and pleased with our warm devotions than with our warm disputations. When Job completed his repentance by this instance of his forgiving men their trespasses, then God completed his remission by turning his captivity. Note, We are really doing our business when we are praying for our friends, if we pray in a right manner, for in those prayers there is not only faith, but love. Christ has taught us to pray with and for others in teaching us to say, Our Father; and, in seeking mercy for others, we may find mercy ourselves. Our Lord Jesus has his exaltation and dominion there, where he ever lives making intercession. Some, by the turning of Job’s captivity, understand the restitution which the Sabeans and Chaldeans made of the cattle which they had taken from him, God wonderfully inclining them to do it; and with these he began the world again. 

Ladies, remember to pray for your friends.