"How can I pray for you?"
"How can I pray for you?"
I hear this all the time. People ask me, I ask them. If you live in a church community, you can absolutely relate to this question. If we're going to be honest, it's probably one of the most frequently asked questions in our lives!
Recently, I've been wondering if the asking of this question can be problematic?
Before you kill me, hear me out:
When I lived with my roommates in college, we almost never asked, "How can I pray for you?"; yet, I prayed consistently and specifically for each of the guys in my apartment. The things is, we didn't ask for prayer request because we had so many conversations that we KNEW the requests!
We should be in relationship with our community deeply enough to know what each person needs prayer for. Of course, there are absolutely appropriate times to ask, especially if someone needs to be prodded. With that said, I don't want to ask "How can I pray for you?" to my people, I want to be intentional in their lives in such a way that I intimately know what they need prayer for before they have to ask.
My challenge for us is this:
