Why some of our intercessory prayers are ineffective …

Be careful how you pray for someone you don’t know, they may be asking you to join in their disobedience!

Have you ever had a request to pray for someone you don’t really know? Maybe you’ve had people you know only through social media ask you to pray about something. Or perhaps you received a long list of prayer requests from your church. Maybe you’ve been given a one sentence request to pray for a friend of a friend you’ve never heard of. These requests for prayer may come from people you don’t know well (or at all), yet they’re asking you to pray in a specific direction or for God to accomplish something particular for them.

The problem is, you don’t know the real context of their situation, so you don’t know if what they are asking is the wisest thing to pray for them. Some may actually be facing difficulty due to their own sin, and are wanting people to attempt to pray away the circumstances that come from their choices.

It’s because of this that many of these prayers are ineffective.

We see in 1 John 5:14-15 (and other passages of scripture) that our prayer requests should align with God’s will if we expect for God to give us what we ask for: “And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.”

When we pray for someone we don’t know or don’t know well, it’s better to bring before God only what we know will align with His will for that person. That might mean instead of praying in the specific manner that we’ve been asked to pray, we instead pray something like this:

“Father in Heaven, I don’t know Joe, but Joe is calling out to you. I don’t know his heart toward you, or the reality of his walk, I only know he’s hurting. I also know you are His Maker, that you love him unconditionally, and that You have in Your heart only what is best for him. So I ask that while he is reaching out to You, that You would give heed to his current willingness to call out to You, and that You would answer his call with Your great love for him in the way You know what’s best for him …”

That prayer can go much deeper into really praying for what’s best for the person making the request. Even if the person asking for prayer may not be asking for something that aligns with God’s will for them, you can make sure your prayer on their behalf does!

Scotty