The beauty of prayer! As we focused on bringing everything to God in prayer, we haven’t touched on praying for our community, which essentially can mean praying for our family and friends but can extend to acquaintances and other people we know. Quite often, we come across the question of why we need to pray for others? Will God listen to our prayers for others? Why would God sometimes answer prayers from us even though the person receiving the changes is not praying?

Firstly, prayer is aligning our will with God’s will. All circumstances are defined as the will of God (1 Thessalonians 5:18). It also includes aligning other’s wills in God’s will and as we observe prayers being answered, we see God’s work.

Secondly, sometimes during prayer, we find out how insignificant our needs are and sometimes realize the wrongness of our motives and desires. We realize how our suffering compares to those who are having even more struggles, and allows us to stand even more to our faith.

Finally, praying for someone else displays your inheritance of God’s perfect love. As stated, the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbours (Matthew 22:39). We show this love by helping them physically and also spiritually through prayer as prayer for others is the most powerful source of love.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, have you prayed for your neighbours recently? If you haven’t go ahead and pray for them!