“Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.” (James 5: 16)
I know we like to say, these days, that we send our “thoughts” as well as our prayers, to those who have suffered some loss or tragedy. And this is not a bad thing, of course. But somehow, I find that when I say that I send my “thoughts” as well as my prayers, I tend to neglect the second part.
Let me really pray, this morning, for anyone I happen to have heard of recently, in need of prayer, lest I dismiss myself from the responsibility of really praying for people, rather than just “thinking” about them. And the difference is, letting God into the picture of my relationship with them. I can think “about” people, which is a kind of thing that remains between me and them. But I can pray “for” them “to” God, which is a kind of thing that lets a Third Party, namely, God, into our picture, ever more powerful than us. So let us pray for one another, because He can help, – in ways that we, and our mere “thoughts,” cannot.
