Is a command to pray an “imprayerative”? Get it? An imperative (or command) about praying is an “imprayerative.”

Well, whether or not you like the term I just coined, Scripture seldom outlines specifics that we’re supposed to pray about. But I ran across one as I was reading Luke the other day.

“Later the Master selected seventy and sent them ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he intended to go. He gave them this charge: ‘What a huge harvest! And how few the harvest hands. So on your knees; ask the God of the Harvest to send harvest hands’” (10:1-2, MSG).

When I read that familiar verse, I was relieved. Whew. He’s not asking me to go; He’s only asking me to pray. So I took Jesus at His word and asked the Father to send harvest hands to various fields that the Holy Spirit was bringing to my mind: universities, seminaries that have lost sight of truth, psychic fairs (!), women’s shelters, halls of government, Cambodian villages, jails and prisons, youth centers, and more.

That wasn’t hard, I thought, still relieved that God wasn’t asking me personally to represent Him in those places, only to pray. A day later, however, something interesting happened. I got an e-mail from a high school classmate who is suffering because of bad choices she’s made. In fact, it’s not clear to me if she’s currently in jail or has served time in the past—but jail time is definitely one part of her painful story. She said she sees strength in my life and begged me to keep in touch with her.

Immediately I remembered one of my Luke 10 prayers—that the Lord of the Harvest would send laborers into jails and prisons. That’s certainly not a ministry I would ever volunteer for. But now my heart is unusually drawn to this high school classmate of mine. I’m finding myself praying for her a lot and asking God for next steps in how to encourage her and love her in His name. I really do hope that He will let me represent Him to her. I’d be thrilled.

So, I’m thinking that the “imprayerative” Jesus gave is pretty sneaky. If He can get me to pray for laborers, then eventually He might persuade me to become one. He knows me pretty well—if He can’t get me in through the front door, He’ll do it through the back door. Has He ever used that method with you? I challenge you to pray Luke 10:1-2 like I did and then let me know what happens.

Isn’t it interesting how people who are dead set against evangelism, the Bible, and other forms of Christian witness and expression will still sometimes give space for prayer? A friend recently told me about her agnostic friend who routinely asks her to pray and even prays herself. Although her friend bristles at talk about Jesus, she welcomes prayer.

Another friend recently told me that he has been invited to teach publicly about prayer in a country that routinely restricts or prohibits the sharing of the Christian faith. What’s up with that?

In any event, my friend is eagerly accepting this opportunity. He will teach on both the asking and listening aspects of Christian prayer and set up prayer stations where people can immediately try out what they learn.

I get excited thinking about what God might do as a result. Just think of it. In some countries where the gospel cannot legally be preached, we hear about people seeing visions of Jesus, perhaps not unlike what happened when Saul was knocked off his horse when he encountered the Lord. So how much more might God manifest Himself to a nonbeliever who takes a step of faith and actually calls out to Him? Or to that same nonbeliever who quietly meditates on His Word and invites Him to speak? If God were impatient like I am (but He’s not!), I’d imagine Him barely being able to wait until that prayer event takes place and all those people start calling out to Him!

It makes me wonder: What would happen if I encouraged my unbelieving friends to pray to God and listen for Him? Have any of you tried that? What happened?

 

Sometimes the most obvious thing to do is to pray. Yet, even when it’s terribly obvious, I sometimes miss it. Thank goodness for friends.

Last night a friend shared something huge and heavy with six of us who work in the same ministry. It was the first time the painful situation—which has been going on for years—had been shared. I made a note to myself to do some serious intercession for this family. And I will. But we were in the middle of a meeting, and honestly, it didn’t even occur to me to pray on the spot.

Thankfully, another person in the group asked, “Can we pray for you right now?” Of course, both our hurting friend and the leader of the group agreed. So we spent the next 20 minutes or so in heartfelt, Spirit-led intercession. The sense of God’s love and presence was powerful, and I believe the experience of in-the-moment praying will help us all to remember to pray more faithfully for our friends in their struggle.

I know this already: In-person, real-time prayer means more to me than prayer promised (although I’m happy to receive both!). So I want to remember that and do the obvious thing: When a friend shares a God-sized need, I want to pray for that person right then and there. It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

To read an article on this topic, go to http://www.navpress.com/magazines/archives/article.aspx?id=21346.

My friend had just come back from Bible study. “The discussion was great, but when it came time to pray, it was hard to get anyone to pray out loud,” he told me.

Of course, his concern is not an unusual one. Pastors, Bible study leaders, prayer group facilitators face it all the time. Pray! magazine published several helpful articles on this subject over the years, for example, see https://www.navpress.com/magazines/archives/article.aspx?id=21687.

But I’d like to hear your input on this subject, too. If your tendency is to be mum when it comes to group prayer time, what do you wish the prayer leader knew about your quietness? Have you learned to speak out more over time? What helped you? And if you’re a prayer leader who has dealt with this challenge, what have you tried? What works? What doesn’t? Share your thoughts so we can learn from one another.

 

I had a zillion things I wanted to pray about this morning. Work. Relationships. Scheduling. Family. Church. Responsibilities. Hurting people. Transitions. Decisions. I’m telling you, a zillion things. To borrow from Henri Nouwen, who said it better than I can, my inner life looked “like a banana tree full of jumping monkeys.”

Ordinarily I would try to soldier through. I’d pray for help and then discipline myself to articulate the needs, stresses, and burdens on my heart. And sometimes I think that’s what I need to do.

However, today God led me to something entirely different. He reminded me of invitation after invitation to rest, like these:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15, NKJV).

“I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:2).

So in my mind, I bundled up all the “monkeys” and handed them to Him. And then in my soul, I just sat with Him for a while. I said, Abba, You are here with me. You care about these things and You care about me. I choose to trust in Your love. I didn’t ask for anything or say anything more. I just sat there with Him and allowed Him to restore my soul.

I came away from that time feeling unburdened and refreshed. And I realized there’s more than one way to quiet jumping monkeys.


 

A pastor told a group of us at a conference last weekend that in 17 years of ministry only once had anyone ever inquired about her prayer life. “People ask, ‘How are you doing?’ but no one asks, ‘How are you doing with God?’” She told us she wishes someone would.

Her plaintive remark got me thinking. Don’t we all need someone who will be caring enough, daring enough, to ask us how our communication with God is going? I am blessed to have some friends who do that for me. Frankly, I don’t know where I’d be  without them.

If I need friends like that in my life, then I imagine that pastors, with all the pressures they face, need such friends, too. Nevertheless, not everyone should rush to the assignment.

It seems to me that in order to be truly helpful, people who want to genuinely encourage their pastors’ prayer lives should have several qualities. They should:

• already be praying privately for their pastors.
• have an established personal relationship with their pastors in which there is mutual trust.
• recognize that like everyone else, their pastors are frail human beings and have weaknesses.
• seek to encourage rather than to judge or “improve” their pastors.
• demonstrate honesty, humility, and vulnerability about their own prayer lives to avoid coming across as intimidating prayer giants. If prayer is never a struggle for them, they’re probably not good candidates for the assignment.
• be able to keep confidences. The last thing pastors need is to have their feelings of inadequacy aired before the church.

Pastors out there, what’s your experience? Would you appreciate having someone inquiring about your prayer life from time to time? Or have you had bad experiences along those lines? What do we need to learn from one another to be true spiritual friends who encourage one another in our lives with God and prayer?