Bear Each Other's Burdens

In honor of the national day of prayer, which is tomorrow, I feel the need to share with you something God has shown me in the past week or so about praying for each other.

We all know that God commands us to pray for each other, bear one another's burden.  But why? The obvious answer is that when two or three agree, God moves (Matthew 18:19). But I think there is more, or rather just a different perspective I had never thought about.

It is hard to continue praying for your loved ones or your situation when you are in the thick of it.  You can't see the forest for the trees. And often, when we are so close to a situation, our prayers get selfish.  We (or maybe it's just me) pray all sorts of solutions to God, hoping he'll pick one. We think hard and try to give God some options to choose from. (I am exaggerating a little bit for affect, but I think you get my point.)  Over time, our prayers no longer are a way to give things to God, but a way to retell the story or relive the pain, to bring up the emotions again.  There is nothing wrong with being burdened for a loved one, but when our prayers result in us picking our burdens back up and carrying them with us through our lives, it is no longer beneficial to us or our situation. Our perspective is tainted and honestly, our emotions get in the way of us hearing God clearly and being able to be led by his Spirit.

So when a brother or sister can bear our burden for us, bringing it to God, they are more free to pray God's will in the situation. They can hear God clearer and can pray according to how the Spirit is leading and not their emotions.

All that to say, yes I pray for my kids, as parents should, but my emotions can definitely get in the way of hearing what God is saying and I struggle to pray God's will instead of what I want to see happen. (Maybe I'm the only one like this.) It is much easier (and perhaps more productive spiritually) for me to either pray in the Spirit (which God tells us is praying his will in Romans 8:27) or to pray for someone else's situation and family as God leads and trust God to put my needs on someone else's heart and to take care of it completely.

I have seen God move in my life very clearly when I am able to truly lay my needs down at His feet (meaning I literally stop worrying/praying about it, trusting God to take care of it all) and pick up someone else's burden to bear. I do know that when I focus my efforts on the needs or others, there is freedom from the stress and worry of my burdens.  God honors a selfless prayer.