God knew what I needed, even if I didn’t know myself.

Written by Hope on 12/05/2013
Series: Weekly Devotional
Tags: Daily Bread, God, Jesus, Prayer, Service
"The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.” (Romans 8:26)

More than once, I’ve been too upset or in too much pain to pray with words. However, I’ve never felt like God abandoned me; I never felt out of communion with Him. I felt like something in me was still calling to Him, even though I couldn’t even express what I needed. God knew what I needed, even if I didn’t know myself.

Daily Needs
One of the sentences Jesus taught His followers to pray was, “Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11) this can be a form of requesting that God meet all our needs. Of course, “bread” was not all Jesus ever asked the Father for; and we need more than just food. It’s so wonderful that the Bible gives us so many examples of Jesus praying, so we know that we, His followers, can also come to the Father with all our prayers.

Needing Salvation
Before He died, Jesus prayed, “for all who will ever believe in Me through [the Disciples’] message. … May they be in Us so that the world will believe You sent Me”(John 17:20-21). The most important thing every person needs is God’s salvation – the chance to know and live for Jesus. Many people do not know there is a God, let alone that they need the Lord.

Share Your Bread
When you share your faith with friends, they might not be able to tell you what they need. You can let them know that it’s okay not to know, that Jesus covered it in the Lord’s Prayer with “daily bread,” and that Jesus told His followers that the “Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask Him!”(Matthew 17:20-21) . Maybe your friends will let you pray over their needs – both spoken and unspoken – with them. What a great witness!

Prayer, Care and Share Jesus
If you cannot physically assist someone in need - Pray Now!

Scripture: " "Is anyone among you in trouble? Let him pray. ... Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." (James 5:13, 16-17 NIV)

Sometimes we can’t solve the problems of people around us by using what we have. But we can go to our greatest resource - God. No matter what a person's problem is - fear about a test, money for a pressing need, a broken down car, illness - it can be brought before God in prayer.

Praying silently for someone's need is a good first step if you have not prayed out loud before. But our encouragement is to pray out loud when you can. Start today!

God gives great joy when you pray out loud with someone! For example, you can say: "Let's just ask God to help us with your need." Then pray briefly closing your prayer by saying, "in Jesus name."

Rarely will someone say "No" to your prayer offer. But if they do, just say: "OK". Then give a very friendly goodbye and pray silently for them as you walk away.

You will be amazed about the positive response of most people.

A Helpful Tip:Don’t worry if, at first, you feel you can’t ask people out loud to pray for them. Pray silently and ask the Lord to help you make the connection. The Lord helped me get over my fear to pray for a friend about a need. It was a “wow” moment. And from then on, I could do it more and more!

Pray this week:
You will have the courage to ask the person in need if you can pray for them about the issue.

It is easy to share our time, energy and money with people but harder to 'share the Good News'. Why do you think that is? What will you do to point the world to Jesus today? Not sure? Ask a Christian for help to learn more.