Interceding for five friends far from God: twenty minutes of perseverance

Some of your friends are far from God: indifferent, hurt, skeptical, drifted away after a bad experience. You would like them to discover what you have found, but you don't know how. There is a gesture that costs nothing and can change everything: praying for them, with perseverance. This quest offers you twenty minutes this week.

What it looks like in your day

Take a sheet of paper and write five first names: friends, loved ones, colleagues who don't know Jesus or who have drifted from him. Then, during the week, set aside twenty minutes to pray for them. Here is one way to do it:

• Three minutes of preparation. Thank God for each one, for what you love in them.
• One minute per person, five minutes in all: pray for their concrete life (family, work, health), for their heart (that they would seek, that they would ask questions), and for opportunities to meet God.
• Five minutes of pleading. Tell God again why you love him, remind him of his goodness. Like Abraham, plead: "Lord, you are patient, you want everyone to be saved."
• Five minutes of silence. Listen. An idea for a gesture to make may come.
• Two minutes of handing over. "I don't control it, I entrust them to you."

You can pray this all at once or spread it over three days. Keep the sheet for the following weeks: perseverance is part of the exercise.

If you are in a hurry, fifteen minutes is enough. If you are shy, nobody knows you are praying. If your list changes (someone draws closer, another appears), update it.

What the Bible says

Paul expresses his heart for those of his own people who hadn't recognized Jesus:

“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.”

"My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved": a prayer made out of a deep longing. Jesus teaches perseverance:

“And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.”

A widow comes back every day to ask a corrupt judge for justice, and ends up obtaining it. Jesus doesn't say that God is like this judge: he says that if even this judge gives in to insistence, God, who is good, will answer those who cry out to him. And in the book of Genesis, Abraham pleads for whole cities:

“And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”

He isn't afraid to insist, to negotiate, to remind God of his justice. Intercession is a plea full of respect and frankness.

Pitfalls to avoid

Getting discouraged by the slowness. Some prayers wait for years. That is not a sign that God isn't listening. Keep going.

Praying with bitterness. "Why doesn't he budge?" If you grow impatient with them, ask God to make you gentle.

Reducing friends to a mission. You don't love them because of their possible conversion. Love them as they are, pray for them, without calculation.

Praying in their place. Each person must answer God personally. You can open a path, not walk it for them.

Keeping the list secret forever. Sometimes a concrete gesture (a message, a meal, an invitation) comes as an extension of your prayer. Stay alert.

This week, write five first names. Set aside twenty minutes to pray, alone or with a friend.