twenty years who one day said to me, “I don’t know if your beliefs in God are right or wrong, but you may be the only person on earth who cares about my soul.” I repeat these words here because it is a calling every single one of us can take upon ourselves: to care, in prayer, for the soul of another.
There is another way, however, that we sometimes do damage to one another’s prayer lives. Friends sigh and say to us, “You know, I hardly ever pray.” And we commiserate and say, “I know. You’re so busy now. It’s so hard.” And we sell each other down the river. We diminish these friends; we patronize and sell them short. In an effort to be nice—the scourge of humankind, I sometimes think—we fail to hold each other to account. Bottom line, we have to decide whether prayer is a harmless pastime, a lovely interlude, there to indulge in when we have the time, or, if it is food for body, soul, and mind, air to lungs, fire to life. If we decide prayer matters, we deprive and dishonor one another by placating, patting one another on the head, and saying it’s OK not to pray. I can remember with precision those times in my life when I’ve said to a good friend, “I shouldn’t do that,” and the friend has replied, “No, you shouldn’t.” Replies like this can make us understand what friendship is. The Bible tells us to “consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Hebrews 10:24 KJV).
May prayer itself be love and a good work.
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