1 TIMOTHY 2:1
Do we stop to think of and pray for the people who are not close to us or known by us? Why should we really be bothered with their affairs when we have enough burden for the day and days to come?
A young lady and her mother heard a news story about a young man who had been critically injured in a plane accident that took the lives of his father and stepmother. Although they did not know him, they kept praying for him.
Some years later, she walked into a class at her university and a student offered her the seat next to him. That student was Austin Hatch, the plane crash victim she and her mother had prayed for. He had suffered severe injuries and nearly lost his life. After being in a coma for two months, he had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat and basically how to live his life, once he woke up. The lady who was praying for him was Abby Cole. Soon they were dating, and later got married.
“It is crazy to think that I was praying for my future husband,” Abby said in an interview shortly before they were married.
It can be easy to limit our prayers to our own personal needs and for those closest to us, without taking the time to pray for others. Paul, writing to the Christians at Ephesus, told them to keep “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” (Ephesians 6:18). And he told Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:1 to pray “for all men.”
Let us pray for others – even the people that we do not know. It is one of the ways we can carry each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). And who knows whose life we will be touching through our prayers?
