"I'll pray for you"

“I’ll pray for you.”

How often have we uttered those words? How frequently do we assure someone of our prayers, encourage them with a commitment to present this request to God? How commonly—dare I ask this?—do we fail to follow through on this simple, four word statement?

At our staff meeting yesterday, Shane gave a devotional on Matt 5:33-37, focusing on the last verse. NIV: “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Shane stressed the importance of truthful speech, and emphasized that following through with our commitments is one crucial aspect of this. He related how, in the course of building his house, some contractors would commit to doing something by a deadline, but would then prefer to do bigger money projects first, pushing Shane back. Thinking about this, I noted that one of the ways that we frequently fail to keep our word is by stating we will pray, and then not doing so. I’d like to reflect today on why we do this, and then tomorrow suggest how we might do better.

Why do we do this?

I think we can safely assume that we’re not offering to pray and then failing to follow through out of an evil intention. We’re not deliberately misleading people. We’re not trying to be deceptive. So why do we do this? Why do we make the commitment? Why do we break our commitment?

Why do we make the commitment? I believe we often make the commitment with good intentions. We honestly recognize that the given situation should be prayed for, and we want to do that. We acknowledge that we have a Christian duty to pray, and we want to fulfill it. We have also heard enough other Christians say it that we know we should say it. And there are times when someone asks us to pray for them, and so we say we will.

Why do we break the commitment? Can I suggest that one reason is that we never really intended to keep it in the first place? That we said it because we’re supposed to say it, but we never had any plan to follow through? Is that too painful, too direct, to admit?

Assuming better intentions, what reasons might there be for breaking our commitment? I think most of us don’t have any system of keeping track of prayer requests or prayer commitments. We say “I’ll pray for you,” and then go back to watching the news, cooking dinner, talking with whoever may be next, reading an article, etc. In a few minutes, we’ve forgotten our commitment. Perhaps in a couple of days, we’ll remember, feel a twinge of guilt for not praying, offer up a 30 second prayer, and assuage our guilty conscience. We don’t purposefully and deliberately plan to pray, and the result is that we don’t pray. Come back tomorrow and I’ll offer some suggestions to improve this.

What do you think? Is this something you struggle with? Is this a common problem? Why do we do this?