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What to Do When Someone Says They're Praying for You · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Bart Leger: Ken Brantley was a young doctor who had gone to
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  Liberia to care for people nobody else would touch. Then
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  the disease he was fighting got into his own body. The test came
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  back positive for Ebola, and everyone knew what that usually
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  meant. grew weaker by the day. His body was shutting down, and
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  the treatments were a long shot at best. Thousands of miles from
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  home, shut inside an isolation ward, he had every reason to
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  feel alone. The truth was, he had never been less alone in his
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  life. He just couldn't see it yet. We'll come back to what he
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  couldn't see, but first,
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  Welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. Okay,
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  so I'm describing myself here. Somebody tells me they're
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  praying for me. I say, I appreciate that, and I'm already
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  moving on to what's next. I don't mean to brush it off. It
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  simply comes out as a reflex before I've taken in what the
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  person just told me. And that man may have been on his knees
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  for me that morning. He may have given me five, ten, or twenty
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  minutes of his life that I'll never see, and I gave him four
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  words on my way past him in the hallway. I'm working on that one.
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  Somebody tells you they're praying for you, and you don't
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  quite know what to do with it. You mumble a thank you. It feels
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  awkward, and you couldn't tell anybody why. Maybe part of you
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  wonders whether they mean it, or whether it's the church version
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  of saying, take care. And maybe beneath that awkwardness,
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  there's usually a thought you would never say out loud. You
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  aren't sure it does anything. But the Apostle Paul saw it
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  differently. Here's 2 Corinthians 1, verse 11. And you
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  are helping us by praying for us. Then many people will give
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  thanks, because God has graciously answered so many
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  prayers for our safety. Look at that verb, helping. You are
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  helping us by praying for us. Paul writes that a few sentences
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  after telling the Corinthians he had been crushed by pressure in
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  Asia to the point that he despaired of life itself. He
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  came through it, and when he accounts for how that happened,
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  he puts the prayers of a church in Corinth on the list. Those
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  people were hundreds of miles from him. They couldn't send a
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  doctor or get him out of anything. What they could do was
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  pray, and Paul counted it as a help that arrived. And this is
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  the Apostle Paul. If anybody could have gotten by on his own
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  access to God, it was probably that man. He asked for their
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  prayers anyway. And then he turned around and told them
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  their prayers had worked. Then look at the back half of that
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  verse. Many people will give thanks, because God has
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  graciously answered so many prayers. What Paul does is he
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  sees a circle, a crowd prays, and God answers. That same crowd
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  ends up thanking him for it. The person being prayed for is the
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  one part of something much bigger than his own situation.
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  So here's what to do when somebody says it to you. Thank
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  them out loud and mean it while it's coming out of your mouth.
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  That's the first step. And many of us skip right past it. Then,
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  if the moment allows for it, give them something to aim at.
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  Tell them a particular thing. Would you pray about my
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  daughter's situation at school? Or pray that I get better sleep
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  this week? When you hand somebody a particular thing, you
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  turn a kindness into a partnership. And when God moves
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  on it, go back and tell that person. That's the back half of
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  Paul's verse doing its work. While Kent lay something he
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  couldn't feel from his bed was happening across the world.
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  Thousands, maybe millions of people who had never met him
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  were praying for him by name. Whole churches and total
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  strangers were lifting up one sick doctor. He recovered and
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  walked out of that hospital. He stood before the cameras with
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  tears in his eyes and told everyone that he serves a
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  faithful God who answers prayers and that he could never thank
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  them enough for carrying him through. A world had prayed for
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  one sick doctor and that doctor came home. Look at what he said
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  he learned afterward. He was too sick to know. The praying went
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  on whether he could feel it or not and it went on by name from
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  people who would never meet him. Brantley was careful about this
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  when he told it. He thanked the doctors and the experimental
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  drug in the same breath as the prayers and then he called his
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  survival a direct answer to thousands of prayers. He never
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  set one against the other. That's the part to hold on to
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  when somebody tells you that they're praying for you and you
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  can't feel a thing changing. Brantley couldn't feel it either.
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  Here's today's challenge. The next time somebody tells you
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  they're praying for you, stop walking, look at them, and say
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  thank you like you heard it. Then give them one particular
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  thing to pray about. It helps when someone has something
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  specific to pray. And do one thing more. Think of somebody
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  you've told you were praying for and go pray for them right now
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  before you forget again. Then send them a line letting them
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  know you did it. Father, thank you for the people who pray for
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  us when we'll never know about it. Teach us to receive that the
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  way Paul did as help that arrives whether we can feel it
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  or not. And forgive us for the quick thank yous we hand out on
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  our way past somebody. Bring people to mind today who need
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  praying for and let some of them find out that somebody did. In
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  Jesus' name, amen. If this episode encouraged you today,
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  would you share it with someone who might need to hear it? Just
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  go to dailydevotionsforbusylives.com
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  slash 331 and copy the link. It only takes a second, and it
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  makes a real difference in someone else's day. Thanks for
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  joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, Paul
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  called it help, and he meant that word. When somebody tells
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  you they're praying for you, stop and thank them, and then
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  tell them what to pray for. Come back next time for more
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  encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until
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  then, God bless and have a great day.