When We Don't Know What to Pray

Months ago the whole lot of us knelt in the auditorium to get on our knees and intercede for a family that just suffered through a tragic accident.  There was just one problem I had: I couldn’t pray for this one family when my heart so heavily burdened with others.  To be honest, at that point all I could really do was kneel and weep inside. 

Days before we left for this week long conference, our friends got the news that their young niece was diagnosed with an in-operable brain tumor.  She was 6.  The same age as our daughter. 

While at the conference we got news that a dear woman in our church was diagnosed with cancer.

And this word, this disease, this diagnosis had repeatedly came up in the weeks that followed.

Every one of them being part our larger “family”, our family of believers, and it has affected our lives greatly.  I prayed the typical prayers but they felt empty, they felt routine and these precious people needed more than religious prayers. 

As I knelt that day and surrendered my own religious prayers, I asked God

What do you desire that I pray for?  What would you have me pray on behalf of these people who desperately need you and who need hope?

And I waited.  There on the hard floor next to my husband, in a room full of those bent at the throne of grace, His whisper came:

The eternal. 

God’s will is that we overcome and find life even when our earthly answer is death.  It was His Son who died so that even in facing earthly death, His people would overcome it and be alive for all eternity.  When we are at the end of ourselves, when we can’t see the light, we simply need to pray for the Light.  We may not know how to pray for those things that utterly break our hearts, but there is a God who knows, who sees, who comes close through our suffering.  When we can’t find an answer or a way, we turn to The Answer and The Way.   

There may be healing, there may not be.  There may been a quick recovery, there may be a long road to heal. There may be a breakthrough, there may be a breaking. 

But in all this, there is the possibility of an eternal outcome. 

An eternal outcome is the most important thing we could petition God for.

Jesus came to break every chain, to leave the grave empty, to heal the sick and lame.  He will do that, God will fulfill every promise to every believer whose life has been ransomed by Christ.

We may not see that or understand that here on earth but there is eternity set in the hearts of those who believe in these Truth’s.  There is a greater Story, a greater Plan.   May all that we go through – in joy and in sorrow – may we be making deposits into the Kingdom, setting our eyes on eternity and trusting in a Sovereign God who is faithful to His Promises. 

“You turned my wailing into dancing;

you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.”

Psalm 30:11-12

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Psalm 34:18


"His perfect love could not be overcome
Death where is your sting
Our resurrected King has rendered you defeated"
"Forever" by Kari Jobe
(click on lyrics to view music video)