Are you a prayer warrior? The other day, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a posting from a friend who had lost a loved one. I quickly responded as other as others did and typed, “I’m sorry for your loss. I will pray for you and your family.” And kept scrolling down the page… I then stopped and asked myself the question: “Am I really praying for this person? Am I going to remember to pray later?” I immediately stopped and prayed for that person in that very moment because I realized I was going to forget later.
We often tell people we will pray for them but do we really? We may have good intentions but, in reality, we forget or simply say what everyone else is saying because seldom we find the right words to express our sincere sympathy for those who have lost one or are going through a rough time in their lives. Below are three things I now do to ensure I keep my word and pray as promised. After all, those reading our messages are counting on our prayers to get them through their journey.
Make a list.
I started a written list of every person who has asked me for prayer. I write their name, who asked me for prayer, and what I’m praying for. I now have two pages of people I’m praying for daily! When a prayer is answered, I check it off and praise God! If not, then I keep them on my list until I am released.
Do pray.
With a list at hand, I then pray every day for each person, by name. I ask God to help them, heal them, give them grace, strengthen them, or whatever else I have in my heart to ask God for that person. When we intercede for others, God listens. He always does. And He always answers—even if it’s not in our time. He answers in His time.
Tell them you’re praying.
Telling others you’re praying for them accomplishes three things: 1) You are keeping yourself accountable for praying; 2) You encourage those who need the prayers; and 3) You are acknowledging to God that you need Him. Every time I tell a friend, relative, or even a customer that I prayed for them or for their loved one or their job (whatever the subject is) they immediately respond and tell me, “I needed this today!” or “Thank you for your prayers. They do help!”
Prayer is a weapon that God gave us to fight the good fight. Most of the time, it’s the only weapon we have! In God’s army, I want to be a prayer warrior! Dictionary.com describes the word warrior as “a person engaged or experienced in warfare; soldier, a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness.” Each word here is an important word. We must be engaged in prayer like a soldier is in battle. We must get experienced in praying by doing it daily. We must not give up and pray with vigor, courage, and aggressiveness—never giving up on praying nor believing. We are living in times when we need to pray day and night. Every day is a new battle, and we are God’s soldiers until Jesus returns…
I will leave you with a question and two Scriptures: Are you a prayer warrior?
Exodos 3:15 (NLT)
The Lord is a warrior; Yahweh is his name!
Judges 4:14 (NLT)
Then Deborah said to Barak, “Get ready! This is the day the Lord will give you victory over Sisera, for the Lord is marching ahead of you.” So Barak led his 10,000 warriors down the slopes of Mount Tabor into battle.