Somebody’s prayin’

“Preacher,” a church member said to me one Sunday, “I was driving in front of the church this morning, and I saw you standing by yourself up there at the top of the front steps. I knew what you were doing; I knew you were praying. And I just want you to know it made me feel better.”

It somehow makes us feel better knowing somebody’s praying, though I can’t explain exactly why.

I’ve never been much of a country music fan, but I can listen to Ricky Skaggs sing, Somebody’s Prayin,’ over and over.

“Somebody’s prayin’

I can feel it

Somebody’s prayin’ for me.”

It’s comforting knowing somebody’s praying.

Every now and then some dear saint will pull me aside and say, “Pastor, I pray for you every day.”

And I always feel better when I hear that.

I was driving to work this morning (Sunday), and I called Dad, as I do most every day on my way to work. Only this time Mom answered. That’s unusual because it’s been several years since she’s been up early enough to catch my Sunday morning call. I figure she has a right to sleep in a bit; after all, at 93 she’s three birthdays ahead of Dad.

“Let me pray for you, son,” she said after our brief conversation.

It felt good hearing Mom pray for me.

It’s reassuring to know somebody’s praying, even though we may not completely understand why we feel that way, just as we can’t comprehend how our prayers work into God’s will, plan, and purposes for our lives.

The Apostle Paul acknowledged that much. After telling the church in Corinth how he and his team of missionaries had been “crushed and overwhelmed” beyond their ability to endure and how at one point they had even “expected to die,” Paul told the church, “You are helping us by praying for us”(II Corinthians 1:11).

Knowing someone is praying is comforting, even though we can’t explain the dynamics of how it happens.

Sometimes, the awareness that a person of prayer is in fact praying is enough.  My friend didn’t know for whom or for what I was praying that Sunday morning.  Still, it was uplifting for her to see me praying.

But more is involved than simply seeing someone pray. Prayer is a transversal language that speaks to the heart, even when we can’t hear the person’s prayers.

Not long ago, I awoke around 3:30 a.m. with something troubling me. I tossed and turned, stirred and stewed over it. Then I had an image of the Cistercian monks at the Abby of Gethsemani praying. I could see them in their white robes under their black scapulars as they chanted their prayers in the dimly lit monastery at 4 a.m. I thought, “Those holy men are praying right now, at this very moment.”

And for some reason I felt better, even though they weren’t praying for me.

Then again, how do I know they weren’t? How do I know God didn’t take their prayers, pick one, spin it around, and toss it to me personally?

And God could have taken my prayers for my church that day I was praying on the front steps of the church, lifted one from my heart and addressed it to my friend in a personal message of peace for her.

God does work in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, so this side of eternity we’ll have to be content to see through a glass darkly.

The late Baptist evangelist, Vance Havner, tells that his first pastorate was a country church back in the 1920s. Havner described himself as “a pedestrian,” meaning that he walked everywhere. He didn’t own a car and didn’t purchase one until he was 66 years old. “I wanted to think it over,” Havner said.

It so happened that Havner would walk past a grocery store most every day. One day the grocer stopped Havner and said, “Preacher, I want you to know that many a time when things were not going well, I looked out my store window and saw you going by, and it helped. I felt better.”

The grocer didn’t elaborate, but Havner never forgot it.

Just knowing a person of prayer is passing by can help.

How?

As my two-year-old grandson often answers in simplest terms: “Don’t know.”

The Ricky Skaggs song has a couple of lines in there that come about as close as I can get as to why we feel better knowing somebody’s praying.

“Lord, I believe,

Lord, I believe.”

I do.

And I hope you do, too.

Because it’s true.

Somebody’s prayin.’