Hi guys, it’s been a minute there (well like weeks I knowwww) and I’ve missed writing and sharing with you. I sure wasn’t going to let July end without another post so here we are today. In today’s post though I’ll be sharing something from my actual journal that I wrote somewhere 2015/2016. I’m almost always thinking about life and playing random scenarios in my head so this just happens to be one of those days and I thought I should share with you all. Feel free to share your thoughts with me in the reply/comment section below.

So I was on a bus on my way to buy groceries at RT Mart when these thoughts came to mind. Funny thing is, while I was lost in my wonderland, in the physical world on the bus, a Chinese lady was standing by me and the right thing for me to do was to get up and offer her my seat but I didn’t. Why? Because I knew, somehow, that she would reject my offer and I’d be too pissed to sit back down and then someone else would take the seat so I just sat.

Now to my thoughts. So these were thoughts about prayer, selfless prayer- praying for others. In this case, I thought of it as me being on the receiving end of the prayer. Let’s say, the feeling of the knowledge that someone is praying for you. So I wondered at all if someone was praying for me, and if they were, why were they praying for me? I played around with these thoughts in my head, had a mental interview with myself and eventually came up with some points.

First of all, it is a great feeling, wonderful actually, to pray for your partner (boyfriend/girlfriend), but imagine that someone prayed for you, or you prayed for someone not because you’re romantically involved but just for their welfare. And so in that case you wouldn’t be praying just for their lives in ways that could affect you also (e.g praying for their business to succeed because you know that’ll benefit you both), but praying for their souls, for God to reveal Himself to them, to heal their wounds (because it’s a crazy world and everyone is broken somehow), to help them through the things they may never be able to open up to you about, to guide their steps and that they’ll be more in sync with God in both soul and spirit etc. And then I wondered if my male friends prayed for me at all, I mean like you know just prayed for me. My answer; no I don’t think so. And that’s ok because these were just thoughts in my head on a bus… I wasn’t praying for them either, at least not like that but I’m going to start doing that, praying for people whose spiritual growth may not benefit me in anyway. Praying for my friends because Jesus prayed for me too.

In the same light I thought, it’s great when parents pray for their kids. I mean growing up I saw my mum wake up at 4 am to pray for us and all but’ I thought, it would be even greater if parents prayed for other kids too. Their nieces, nephews, the kids and spouses of their friends etc. Imagine that. The well-being of your kids in one way or the other benefits you, but praying for God’s guidance and protection over the lives of the friends of your kids, nephews/nieces or just random kids in your neighborhood does not directly benefit you. What’s more, those kids may never know what you do for them. Yes, that’s the kind of intercession I’m talking about.

Again I thought, if my mother-in-law prays for me, it’s wonderful but also understandable, she’s looking out for her son and her grandchildren. But if parent-in-laws prayed for their children-in-laws not because of the familial relationship but for the salvation of their souls, it’d be so great.

So I guess all these thoughts were just about selfless prayer in a much deeper selfless way. Praying for people not because of the relationship we have with them but for the salvation of their souls.

To conclude, I’ll just say to the youth, definitely pray for your partners but also, for the partners of your friends, and also for the friends who are ‘just friends’. To parents, pray for your children as you always do, but also pray for their friends, and the children of your friends, your nieces and nephews and even the random kids on the streets. In-laws should pray for one another, not just because of their familial ties but for each other’s souls as well.

Dear friends, let’s pray for one another, not only in times of sickness and trials, or because we may become beneficiaries of such prayers. Let’s pray selflessly.

xoxo,

Yarh