For me

“Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to strive together with me in your prayers for me,” Romans 15:30

For me – A few days ago a believer wrote to me.  “Sometimes I just feel like it’s so selfish of me to ask others to pray for me.  I can pray for myself.  And I believe that God hears my prayers.  So, why do I need others to take time to pray for me?  I should be praying for them instead.”  Have you ever felt like this?  Have you ever had the thought, “God, how can I ask them to pray for me when I should be taking up the burdens of others?”  That thought isn’t from God.  It’s the perfect deception.  The enemy is trying to convince you to feel guilty for asking others to join you in your struggles.  And he is using “good” religious motives to do it.

Paul gives us the true picture.  Followers of Jesus are a community of ones who pray for each other.  No one is excluded.  Your needs are as valid as mine.  In fact, Paul asks his brothers and sisters to go to their knees in heartfelt agony over his burdens.  From the world’s perspective, it couldn’t be more selfish.  But from God’s perspective (the only one that counts), this request in at the heart of the God’s plan.

There is a deep belief operating in our culture that provides the ammunition for the enemy to make us feel guilty about asking for the prayers of others.  This belief is that each of us is an individual in the world.  You remember those little sayings, “If it’s going to be, it’s up to me” and “I am the captain of my destiny”.  Well, they aren’t just ego driven mistakes.  They are expressions of our Greek heritage, a heritage that did not believe in a Creator God Who is the sovereign authority over all Mankind.  The Greek view is Man alone in the universe.  The Hebrew view is Man in relationship – with God and with others.  God’s plan has always been that you and I experience unity.  After all, that’s Who God is – a relationship of three in one unity.

Asking for others to pray for me creates this amazing relationship because it lets me be vulnerable to others.  I am no longer the island individual, fortifying myself against the world.  I am exposed as the broken, needy one; the one who is desperate for relationship with God’s other children.  Asking knocks down the walls between us.  That’s what it means to ask someone to pray for my needs.  I have to open my heart to do this.  I have to let you in.  And that’s community.  Pray for me.  I need you.