In James 5:16 (NLT version to be quoted) it says "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results." However, we cannot pray for each other if we're not able to be real and confess to each other.
Now, I'm sure I have a lot of you that are throwing your hands up wanting to shake me because I just said "we can't pray for each other" and Yes, you're right - that statement isn't completely true. We can always say a prayer without knowing the details. What I'm trying to express is that unless we can come clean, share and explain where our struggles are, we cannot begin to heal from the wounds our sins create. Look at that verse again - "Confess your sins to each other AND PRAY for each other SO THAT you may be healed" (shout out to my SS class since we're studying the SO THAT's of the Bible right now!!)
Check out the last part. "The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results." We are made righteous through our faith in Jesus. Even if we have a simple faith, just starting fresh from knowledge, we posses power in our prayers. If we are willing to pray for a friend who has shared with us the struggle, wouldn't you agree that we're going to say it earnestly for them to be healed from that pain? I don't think anyone who sits back to say a prayer says it without passion.
About a month ago I had a dear friend text me. Josh was gone on Mission Trip and I was home alone with the kids. They had gone to bed and I was wallowing in my own despair struggling with some personal issues. This verse continued to nag me. Anyways, this friend texts me saying "Colleen, will you pray for me? I'm in a bad place :/ I love you <3 <3 <3 <3" and I realized God is wanting me to act out what He has commanded in His word. And thus began a couple hour discussion/expression/release of things we both had been holding on to for way too long. By the end of our conversation I asked her if I could say a prayer - for the both of us. We had just talked about Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane in SS a few days prior about how He prayed for Himself first and His struggles about going to the cross before He lifted up His disciples and finally the rest of the body of believers to God. We had talked about how we should make that an instance of prayer in our own lives. I mean, how can we deal with others without dealing with ourselves first (hmmm... ties in to what I'm teaching my scholars at school based off of the book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens" by Sean Covey! Sorry, shiny bubble moment...) So I dove in. I prayed for myself and what I had been struggling with and then I prayed for my dear friend and her struggles. The rush of peace and relief that came over me as I typed the text up and hit send was astounding. I need to worship more so I grabbed my music on Pandora and went to my Shane & Shane station. "This is Who I Am" was the first song that came on - what a God send. (See video embedded in post).
I still struggle with being open and real and honest. I'm a private person. My struggles are not to be aired to anyone else - or so that's how I was raised. I struggle with SAD so I am ever aware of people's opinion's of me - or what I think and observe their opinions of me to be are. But I know that I have been called to confess and I have been called to earnestly pray for those who come to me in confession. It's a work in progress, but it's progressing.
There was more to this post as I wrote it up in my head this morning (this is why I need to be infused with a brain connector to an electronic device so it transposes my thoughts) but maybe, maybe this was all the Spirit really needed me to say.
In Christ's Love
~Colleen :)
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