Put Prayer Into Practice
April 15, 2024 by Amy Byrd
To love and be loved is to be covered in the safest feeling we’ve ever known. To cause hurt and be hurt is to be crushed with the scariest feeling we’ve ever known. And different ways with different people to varying degrees, we all know the multi-faceted complications of love and heartbreak.
And while reading this won’t solve all the problems you may be feeling and facing right now, there is one action item I want to encourage you to put in practice today… Determine to pray more words over a difficult relationship in your life than you speak about it.
I’m doing this now. This is something new. But I’ve been talking about a difficult relationship— I’ll call her “S” — in my life a lot more than I’ve been praying about it. And guess what, nothing has changed with my relationship with “S”.
In Luke 6:39, Jesus asked an important but simple question: “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the pit?” I truly want Jesus leading my relationships. Guiding me, teaching me, redirecting me, and showing me how to live in a way that honors Him and the people in my life.
Praying more words over difficult relationship situations, and then stopping to listen for God’s conviction and instruction is key.
Now, if someone is being hurtful, destructive, or just plain having bad behavior, we can’t tolerate destructive patterns and call it love. That’s something different entirely.
What I’m encouraging here is to use our words in a powerful, beneficial way, to cry out to God and ask him for help in prayer. To remember he is God and we are not. To remember he is in control and we are not. We can do this.
Prayer doesn’t always change things immediately, but it does help remind us that we’re not navigating all of this by ourselves.