Holly Berkley Fletcher is back and we’re talking about prayer.
Prayer is one of those things Christians talk about all the time and understand less often than we’d like to admit.
Especially intercessory prayer.
When someone asks us to pray for them, what are they really asking for? Are they asking us to change God’s mind? To send good vibes with better branding? To perform religious customer service? Or are they asking for something deeper: to be remembered, carried, named, and held before the God who has not abandoned them?
Fleming Rutledge writes, “The disappointment, brokenness, suffering, and pain that characterize life in this present world is held in dynamic tension with the promise of future glory that is yet to come.” That is the world in which we pray. Not a world where everything is fine. Not a world where prayer magically erases grief, fear, illness, or uncertainty. But a world where the church dares to stand in the gap and say, “Lord, have mercy.”
