Have you ever had that annoying moment when you’re trying to access a webpage or an app on your phone and it seems like it’s just not loading correctly? If you’re like me, you know you’ve taken the right steps to access the website or the app, but it just seems like something is not right or like something is missing. I think we’ve all been taught to do essentially the same thing when things freeze up, just hit the “refresh” button on the page or swipe down on your phone to refresh the app.
You know, at times in life when things aren’t going the way we think they should or when some things just don’t seem to be “right”, we have a refresh button as well! It’s called prayer! Now please don’t mistake prayer with the “easy” button that you’ve seen in commercials (don’t we all wish life had an easy button!) While prayer does not necessarily make things easy, effective prayer can truly refresh you! This is how James puts it:
“…and pray for one another that you may be healed.” James 5:16 (NKJV)
Pray for someone else so that you can receive healing for yourself! I absolutely love this! Effective prayer is unselfish. In my experience unselfish prayer has been a key to truly being refreshed in my time with God. And can I be honest with you? It may seem like such a big step, but it truly is not. Unselfish prayer is actually pretty simple!
Unselfish prayer begins with simply thinking of someone else’s needs, their pain or desperation and taking time to pray for them. What a beautiful opportunity we have to join with our family of faith in prayer. Truly, prayer is one of the things that connects us to God and to each other. As we pray for others, we are connected to them, we can rejoice when they rejoice and we can weep when they weep. In praying for others, we actually get to be a part of God’s plan to heal them.
You know, as I’m thinking about this now, when we pray for others, our world gets larger and larger. We begin to live beyond our own needs and recognize that while we may not have all we need, we can be a part of meeting a need for someone else by being generous with our prayers for them. An unselfish prayer is always a generous prayer and the Bible offers great promise for the generous:
“The world of the generous gets larger and larger. The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed” Proverbs 11:24-25 (MSG/NLT)
There it is! Our refresh button! As you choose to be generous with your praying and your believing, as you pray for others to be blessed, as you refresh others, your life is being enlarged, blessed and refreshed! So next time life feels like it’s just not loading right, or like somethings are out of place, just hit refresh! Take time to pray for someone else, and watch your life be refreshed!
Live extraordinarily!
Jared
