Impossible yet Simple

by Dan Christian

Who have you prayed for today?

The biblical command to pray for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ (James 5:16) is at once a call to the impossible and a call to something so simple that any Christian can do it. It is a call to the impossible, in that God alone can rescue a person from their suffering or sin, and He alone can bring lasting change in their heart and life—you and I as mere Christians cannot produce that kind of transformation. Yet the call to pray for one another is a call to a kind of comfort and care that any Christian can provide—no advanced degree or specialized training is required.  

Praying with and for a fellow struggler is one of the most typical, everyday forms of care that Christians provide for one another. But in contrast to the kind of care that is typically given in the office of a professional therapist, praying with a sister or brother in Christ actually stands out as quite unique. How so? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a 20th century pastor-theologian (whose father was a psychiatrist) writes this:

The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.  [Bonhoeffer, Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible, p. 115.]

Because God alone can change a human heart—including your own—you must pray. In Christ, we have been granted access to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16), and we come with confidence that our prayers are not only heard but acted on, by the One whose Spirit has power to abundantly do beyond all we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). God calls you to a work that is humanly impossible, but He unites you to Christ, whose power to bring change knows no limit.

Because praying together is something that any Christian can do—including you—you must pray. We have a unique ministry to bring to one another, a ministry that the psychotherapeutic profession will not provide. If Christ is in you, and you are in Christ, you have a vital ministry to offer, the ministry of praying for and with others. 

Who will you pray with today?