Articles
Why I stopped saying I'll Pray for You
I’ve come to the place where I have had to stop telling people, “I’ll pray for you.” I
simply know that despite my good intentions — and these promises are almost always spoken
with good intent — I know that nine times out of ten I just don’t remember to follow through.
Not until maybe a week or two later, and then I feel guilty that I forgot. I don’t like promising
something I probably won’t live up to. You know how these stories go: Someone you care about
tells you of their pain, need, or struggle, and you respond with, “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that; I’ll
pray for you.” But then, most of the time, we never do.
So instead of promising future prayer, what I try to do nowadays is stop, right there in the
moment, and pray. Right then and there. It’s funny how many Christians this actually throws off
guard. “You mean, right now?” “Yes — absolutely. Let’s pray.”
In the restaurant, in the car, on the plane, wherever. If it’s a text or e- mail request, I’ll
start praying as I type my response, typing out a prayer for them right then and there. Not only
does it help me follow through, but it helps them to agree right along with what I have prayed,
and agreement is mighty powerful, as we know.
For the truth is, there is no “later.” Now is the time to pray, for now is all we really have.
It’s a brilliant ploy of the enemy — keep God’s people talking about it, debating, conjecturing,
worrying over it, speculating, so they never really get around to praying.
By all means, pray when you have time and space to devote yourself to it, time to truly
seek God. But pray now too — because you don’t know that you will get to it later.
~ John Eldredge, Moving Mountains
