Lift (Tuesday, March 12th)

Tuesday, March 12th

Lift: to raise from a lower to a higher position; elevate

Mark 9:27

But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he was able to stand.

I was at a seminar when an unfamiliar woman suddenly approached me. With a big smile, she told me that she had felt called to pray for me. To this day I don’t know why or what she asked God to do for me, and honestly, she made me feel quite uncomfortable. (How bad did I look??) Another time, a fellow church member told me she was praying for my former husband and me, asking God to help us stay married because “Dr. Dobson said children are always better off if their parents stay together.” I had to wonder how she and Dr. Dobson knew so much about our particular family situation that they could so easily say and believe this.

When I tell people I will pray for them- even those I know well and love dearly- I don’t always know what would be the best request to make. I simply will never have all the information that God has. I cannot really know what is the best answer in every circumstance. There is a blessed relief to know that the Spirit intercedes for us, but my prayer requests can feel very inadequate; at times I even worry that my words are completely wrong.

Our word for today is lift. My friend Lisa once told me that the best prayer we can offer for our dear ones is to simply lift them by name before God. In prayer, we present the person before God and say something like this: “I lift ________ to you today, God. I know that you love them even more than I can imagine. I know that your perfect love and healing are surrounding them even now. You know what is best, God, and I thank you for doing that.”

We can lift up any person, situation or concern in the same way. God knows what is needed. God knows what to do already. Our prayer then gives both the one praying and the one being lifted that sweet relief of surrendering our limited and perhaps selfish desires, while entrusting our concerns to God’s complete and perfect control. I like this. I would feel so very blessed if someone told me, “I am lifting you before God today, into God’s perfect, loving presence.” That would be more than enough.

As you finish reading, know that I am lifting in prayer all who read this today, simply presenting you before God’s perfect and loving presence.

*All definitions are excerpted from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/

Photo credit: Aaron Burden on Unsplash