How to pray for missionaries

“Dear God, bless our pastor and all the missionaries. Bless everyone, everywhere. Amen.

That’s one way to pray, but it is neither sensible, nor very rewarding. In fact, that kind of praying soon becomes dull and boring. So, how do you pray for missionaries? It’s one thing to have prayer updates with specific prayer requests to pray for. (Thus the reason why I try to send out weekly prayer updates.) But, for the vast majority of the missionaries I pray for, I don’t have a letter to go by. So, what do you pray for?

I have been reading a small book titled “Pocket Prayers” by Pastor Robert Savage. In the introduction he said, “Instead of repeating the same words over and over in praying for various ones you wish to remember, try this approach. In this book are over 700 Bible-based requests you can use as you intercede for those the Lord has placed on your heart.”

What Robert did is basically go though the New Testament and take the words he read and turn them into prayers. “Then with a church directory in one hand and the requests (from the New Testament) in the other, I prayed for my people. Soon I became excited over the way these requests from the Bible fit people the people I was praying for.” He continues by saying, “This plan revolutionized my personal prayer life. Now I enjoy and am thrilled with the ministry of praying for others.”

So, in the last couple weeks, as I have been reading my Bible, I have taken time to take what I have read and turn the words into prayers. Let me close this with a prayer for you all from Colossians.

Col 2:2-3 I pray today for my supporters that they experience Christ in them today. That as they experience you in their lives, they will live with confidence. I pray that through your life in them, they will experience your wisdom and knowledge. May you reveal to them wonderful hidden treasures of wisdom as they spent time with you today.

Col 2:7 Heavenly Father, let their roots grow down into Christ, and may their lives be built upon him

Col 3:1-4 Since our supporters have been raised with Christ, may that be where their thinking and treasure be today. Today, I pray that our supporters will their mind on things above, not on earthly things. There is nothing of value that this earth has to offer. As far as this earth is concerned, they are dead (Col 3:3).  Help them to live according to that. May they find courage in the fact that their life is hidden with Christ in God and may they learn to depend on the fact that Christ is the source of their life.