'Let Your Prayers Be Known'

Paul starts most of his letters with prayers – prayers for the churches and individuals who will receive them. He tells them what he is praying for them – endurance, faithfulness, righteousness, wisdom, discernment, and so on. The prayer for the Philippians goes from gratitude to God for their friendship, joy because of their partnership in kingdom work, desire to return to them in Ephesus, for them to be filled with wisdom, and, finally, for them to be filled with righteousness. WOW! What a prayer! It took him a mere 8 sentences to say all that. It must have meant the world to his friends reading it in Philippi. Paul made a point to fill them in on what he is asking God to do in their lives.

When was the last time you wrote a note or letter like that? The beautiful thing about writing your prayer to someone is that it is something they can go back to again and again for encouragement. When my children were confirmed, I wrote them a long note of the attributes I saw in them, God’s love for them, how they will make a difference because God was going to use their gifts in extraordinary ways, and that I love them and am proud of them. They have those letters that they can read through the years. It meant a great deal to me as I penned it and to my children when they read it. I encourage you to take Paul’s prayer for the Philippians for your own. Use his basic outline and fill in your own thoughts and prayers. 

When a friend of mine was a young lady, her grandfather, who was quite austere, gave her a Bible as a gift. Within the year after he did that, her grandfather passed away. She picked up the Bible once again and noticed that he gave her a passage to look up. It was Phil 1:9-11. That was his prayer for her. He didn’t leave it unsaid. He let his prayer be known to her, and it has carried her through her years.

We can never overestimate what can happen when we say what we pray. And this is what I pray for you:

‘I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.’ (Phil 1:3-11)

Blessings,

Jonathan