Why this prayer does two things

There are two reasons your prayer matters, and it is worth being honest that one of them is infinitely larger than the other.

First: you are carrying a person to God

This is the reason that would still be enough if nothing else ever came of it.

A woman in a village you cannot find on a map is afraid for her son. Nobody in her life is praying for her. And this week, a stranger in another country — you — will hold her fear in front of the God who made her, and ask him to move.

That is not a workflow step. That is intercession, and Scripture treats it as something that actually does something:

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. — James 5:16 (OTB)

Powerful and effective. Not therapeutic. Not symbolic. If every request you ever pray for ends there — prayed, answered by God in his own way, never reported back to you — the ministry was worth your time.

Second: it unclogs a pipeline

Here is the part that surprises most new members of a prayer team.

Somebody at an event asked a seeker for a prayer request and promised a response. If that response never comes back, the whole relationship ends there — quietly, with nobody at fault. The seeker concludes what anyone would conclude: it was a nice afternoon, and these people were like everyone else.

But when a response does come back, something changes. A stranger prayed. A stranger followed through. And now there is a reason — an honest, non-pushy, entirely welcome reason — to reach out again. Later, that same person can be asked whether they’d like prayer for anything else. Later still, they can be asked whether they’d like to learn how to study the Bible for themselves.

That last question is the door to real discipleship, and it does not get asked at all if the first promise was broken.

So a prayer response is not the last step of an event. It is the first step of a follow-up. Between a hundred people who were served and a handful of people who eventually open a Bible with somebody, there is exactly one narrow place where everything either keeps moving or stops — and it is the desk where a prayer request waits for a response.

Both, at once

Do not let the second reason swallow the first. You are not writing prayers in order to generate follow-up opportunities; if that is the posture, people can smell it, and God is not fooled either.

Pray because a person is hurting and God hears. The door opens as a consequence, not as a technique.

Recite this

I’m praying for a soul, not a step. God opens the door.

Try it this week

Take one request you have already prayed for and finish this sentence honestly, out loud, before you write anything else:

“God, I am asking you for ________________ , whether or not I ever hear about it again.”