WHY I PRAY FOR OTHERS [Sunday, 9-21-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Hopeful Praying of An Old Man—WHY I PRAY FOR OTHERS [Sunday, 9-21-25]

 

Because I refuse to admit that I am helpless, even in the most hopeless circumstances, that’s why I pray. One of them, anyway. The main reason in my old age.

God has given me a brain and a will. If I can’t use my legs or my hands, I can still use my prayers. If you’re in trouble, I’m going to pray for you, dagnabit! As long as I have breath, even if I’ve got nothing else, I’m not giving up. On life… On God… On you…

Okay, that’s the first reason I pray for others: I refuse to give up.

Now, there are a lot of other reasons for intercessory prayer. For one, it works! That’s the second reason.

Yes, not always, but as Larry Dossey, MD, says, in Healing Words, “Surgery doesn’t always work, but we keep using it. Chemo doesn’t always work, but we don’t give up on it. Why should we give up on prayer just because it doesn’t always work?” He is so convinced of the efficacy of prayer that he said, “I would be guilty of malpractice if I did not pray for my patients.”

All the research into the usefulness of intercessory prayer—yes, double-blind research that accounts for all the variables—says that such prayer makes a difference.

Not only intercessory prayer, but also prayer in itself. Research shows that the patients who do best with cancer are those whose first reaction, upon hearing their diagnosis, is to pray.

And there are other reasons to pray…like the third one: it’s good for the one who prays, good for our spiritual and mental health. I suspect that is true because it does what I said at the top…it shows the whole durn world that we are not helpless, that we are not giving up. It’s important for your health to have control of your own life. Praying may be the last bit of control you have, but it’s still control.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about prayer, the fourth reason for doing it, is community. Its main purpose is not results, but presence.

Intercessory prayer builds community. We kiss the booboo not so much to take away the pain but to take away the loneliness. [I think I got that from Rachel Naomi Remen.]

People are almost always helped by knowing that someone is praying for them.

There are exceptions. When I was in college, the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship decided to pray for me because I was not “saved.” I’d be walking across campus with friends and some IV kid would yell at me, “We’re praying for you, John.” That did not make me feel better.

But if you know an honest person is honestly praying for you, without judgment, only with concern, that is a great uplift. That is great community.

Well, yes, there are other reasons for prayer, but I’m at my word limit, so I’ll just be satisfied for now with: I pray because 1] I’m not giving up. I want the universe to know I’m still here. 2] It works. Not always the way we want, but it works. 3] It’s good for the one who prays. 4] It’s good for those prayed for. 5] It builds community.

John Robert McFarland

“Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the community must enter every day.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer