The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up, and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. – James 5:15-16 (NRSVUE)
How often do we hear news of some concern that a person has, like an illness or other struggle, and respond by saying, “I will pray for you.”? Why not just say a quick prayer in that moment? How much harder is it to say, “Let’s pray” and do it right then? We don’t do it because it feels risky, and we worry about what to say. We make prayer into a formal affair, when it need not be complication. When someone shares something of this sort, you can respond, “Can I pray for you right now?” and then, assuming they say yes, give a simple prayer like “God, be with this person. Help them in all that they need.” That’s enough.
Recently, though, I have been receiving this information more and more often by text. This seems harder to respond to prayerfully. Receiving words from a distance does not have the same emotional connection as being in one another’s physical presence. How might we respond with our support in a prayerful way? I have found myself a couple of times in the past week texting prayers to someone. I don’t recall ever having done that before, but I found that it was truly a prayerful way to respond. Rather than “that’s too bad,” how much more powerful is it to respond to such news with, “God, be with (name) in this difficult time. Amen.” It is a faithful response that anyone can give, and I have found it to be well received. Of course this is for people that you know are open to a religious response, but in those cases it is a powerful way to be of support in a faithful way.
We often think of prayer as a spoken word said audibly, and a prayer for someone as something said in the presence of that person. However, in composing a text that is a prayer I found myself truly focused on the needs of that person and being open to God’s will for that person. It is a tool that I will be using more often. There’s no need to wait for the perfect situation to pray; when the moment arises do it.