You Have a Prayer Being Prayed for You
Day 6 Who Are You — REALLY?: Ephesians 1:15–16
Introduction
Someone tells you, offhand, that they’ve been praying for you. Not vaguely. They name the month it started. And something quietly reorders itself, because that stretch you thought you went through alone, you didn’t. Someone was holding your name up before the Lord the whole time and never mentioned it.
Most of us are more comfortable on the other side of that. We’re the ones who keep the list, remember the surgery date, say “I’ll be praying” and then actually do it. It’s harder to picture yourself on somebody else’s list — to imagine your name coming up in prayer in a room you’re not in.
Paul is writing to believers he knows mostly by report. And the first thing he tells them is that he hasn’t stopped praying for them.
Scripture
For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. — Ephesians 1:15–16
Reflection
What’s Happening in the Text
“For this reason” points backward. Everything Paul just finished saying — their being chosen, redeemed, sealed — is the reason he prays. The prayer isn’t an attempt to get God started on something. It’s a response to work God’s already done — and a prayer that they’d respond to it too.
Then notice how he knows these people: “ever since I heard.” He’s working from a report. He is also, at this moment, a prisoner. He can’t travel to them, can’t sit in their homes, can’t do most of what he’d want to do. What he can do is pray, and he does it without stopping.
And notice the order. Before Paul asks God for a single thing on their behalf (that starts in the very next verse), he gives thanks. He names what God is already doing in them before he names what he wants God to do next. Thanks first. Requests after.
What This Means for You
You’re probably more used to being the one who prays. You keep the list. You remember the date. You’re the one who says “I’ll be praying for you” and then actually does. That’s good work, and it quietly conditions you to see yourself as the one holding everybody else up — which makes it very hard to picture anyone holding you up before the Lord.
So here’s something you likely can’t verify: somebody has prayed for you and never told you. A grandmother. A teacher. Someone who sat two rows behind you for a year in church. You may never find out, and that’s the point — being prayed for was never something you had to know about for it to be happening or effective.
But if that one is likely, there’s another you can be certain of. Right now, while you’re reading this, Jesus is praying for you. Not as a figure of speech. Scripture says he lives to do it — intercession isn’t something he did once and finished, it’s something he is doing, continuously, at the Father’s right hand. The prayer being prayed for you didn’t end when Paul did. It has never stopped at all.
And that reshapes how you pray for everyone else. Paul starts with thanks, not with the deficit and not with the fix. He names what God is already doing in a person before he asks for anything more. You can pray for your mate, your kid, your friend, the person you can barely stand, that same way. Start where God already is.
You’ve spent most of your life on the praying end. But you’ve been on the other end the whole time — named in rooms you weren’t in, and named right now by Christ himself, who has never once stopped.
Grace Note
Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. — Hebrews 7:25
Not interceded. Intercedes. The tense is doing the work — not just once but continuously. Whatever else is true of today, that is happening while you read this.
Prayer Prompt
Jesus, I’m usually the one praying for folks. I’ve lost track of the fact that you’ve never stopped interceding, and I imagine my name has been in your prayers often.
I don’t know how to hold that. Most of my life I’ve assumed I’m at the back of the line, or not in the line at all — that if my name comes up in prayer anywhere, it’s because I’m the one who put it there.
And if I’m honest, being prayed for is harder for me than praying. I’d rather be the one carrying than the one being carried. There’s less to feel about it that way.
I’m not going to pretend I’ll stop keeping track of everyone else today. But let me also be someone who is prayed for. You’ve been saying my name a long time. Help me stop talking long enough to hear my name.
Amen.
Response
1. Relational: Tell one person today that you’re praying for them — and tell them what you’re thankful for in them before you ask them what they need. Paul’s order, in a text message.
2. Written Reflection: List everyone you can think of who has prayed for you. Include the ones you only found out about by accident. Then sit with how much longer that list probably is than the part you can see.
3. Kinesthetic: Write one name on something you’ll carry today — a card in your pocket, an index card on the dash. Every time you touch it, pray for them. Carrying one person for a day is a small taste of what Paul did from a prison cell for people he’d never met.
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© Steve Peschke / This Is The Way