Watching Each Other’s Backs in Spiritually Dark Days
By Carol Madison
My friend Jean will tell you—no matter what the circumstance, no matter how impossible it may seem, regardless of how much Satan has done to destroy your child’s life—never give up praying for God’s glorious work. I must admit I wasn’t always hopeful for her daughter Joey, but Jean never stopped rallying intercessors to pray for a miracle.
Although Joey grew up in the church, attended a Christian high school, and knew the promise of Jeremiah 29:11 (God has plans for her future), Joey chose a hard life—rebellion, addiction, prostitution. She knew the darkest of spiritually dark places.
It wasn’t until after years of her mom’s faithful prayers (and nine stints in treatment centers) that Joey found her freedom in Christ. God turned Joey’s life around in a dramatic way.
Jean recounted the many times of assurance of faithful prayers from friends in her church. On one occasion, when she walked into a children’s Sunday school classroom, she saw her daughter’s name written on the whiteboard.
Suddenly she realized all the children were praying for Joey.
Another time, a volunteer firefighter, tragically paralyzed in an accident during a fire, asked about Joey from his hospital room. He had been praying for her despite his own traumatic injuries.
Jean’s little church recognized that spiritual warfare exists and Satan intends to consume believers and families. But these Christians committed to praying persistently. As fellow soldiers, they knew how to “watch each other’s backs.”
Warfare Prayer Mode
The apostle Paul closed his letter to the Ephesians with a dire warning and a plea for his fellow believers to “stand firm” against the devil’s schemes. He didn’t paint a picture of Utopia for the Church; rather, with sobering language, he described the darkness churning around them. And he urged them—and us—to take both defensive and offensive battle postures (Eph. 6:10–17).
Paul then told them how to pray. His instructions, loaded with wise exhortations, came from the experience of this man who knew how to battle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (v. 12).
Paul knew how to approach battles with the strongest arsenal possible—prayer in the Spirit always, without giving up, and for every believer. He knew that all believers, the “saints,” are engaged in a serious battle for the sake of the gospel:
Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. And pray for me, too. Ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God’s mysterious plan that the Good News is for Jews and Gentiles alike. I am in chains now, still preaching this message as God’s ambassador. So pray that I will keep on speaking boldly for him, as I should (Eph. 6:18–20, nlt, emphasis added).
Paul did not instruct people to pray quick “fix-it” prayers to get themselves out of a jam or make their lives more comfortable. If that were the case, he might have said, “Please pray that I’m not beaten or stoned today. And pray that I won’t be shipwrecked again. And one more thing—prison is getting old. Please pray I am found innocent immediately.”
Instead, Paul pursued greater purposes in prayer—that God might equip all the saints to know and share the love of Christ, while at the same time destroying the works and arguments of Satan (Col. 2:2–3; 2 Cor. 10:4).
So how can we pray effectively for each other with this warfare mindset?
- Pray in the Spirit for one another—always. Seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to guide your prayers. Tune in to the urgency of the day and the seriousness of Satan’s prowling around us (1 Peter 5:8–9). The Holy Spirit knows all things and helps us to pray even when we don’t know how.
Paul gave us a wonderful truth and prayer tip in Romans 8:26–27:
The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
Partnering with the Holy Spirit will open our hearts to “prayer prompts” aligned with God’s purposes. We may not have perfect insights in the spiritual battles raging around us, but the Spirit has perfect knowledge to guide us.
One early morning while on a walk, I asked the Spirit to guide me in how to pray for a friend. I sensed the Spirit directing me to pray for her relationship with her teenage daughter. I knew of no struggles or issues between them, but I prayed anyway. I later emailed her, telling her how I felt led to pray—and she responded in tearful amazement. A spiritual struggle was indeed going on, and that prayer echoed the cry of her heart exactly.
Several months later, she called me to say that God had answered those prayers in a profound and restoring way.
2. Stay alert in prayer for one another. When Jesus asked the three disciples to stay awake and watch with Him in the hours before His death, Peter, James, and John discovered that good intentions to stay alert on behalf of their friend were not enough. Jesus returned to them three times, and three times He found them in a sleepy stupor.
He warned them to step up their prayer efforts: “Keep alert and pray. Otherwise, temptation will overpower you. For though the spirit is willing enough, the body is weak” (Mark 14:38, nlt).
We cannot take anything for granted regarding the spiritual lives of our fellow believers. When we are tired, overwhelmed, or just plain careless in our prayer lives, we may open a door for Satan to slip in to tempt us—or our brothers and sisters—toward destruction. So, stay awake and alert at all times in prayer for the saints—because one quick “nod off” may be all Satan needs to move swiftly.
3. Stay persistent in prayer for one another. As long as we remain here on this earth, engaged with demonic and subtle evil forces surrounding us, there is no safe moment to let up on our prayers.
My mom is one of the most persistent pray-ers I know. She has various lists of people she prays for, and her prayer schedule is multi-layered. She prays for some people daily. Others on a certain day of the week. Still others one day a month. If you get on her prayer list, you don’t get off until God has answered her prayer, dramatically changed your life, or taken you to heaven! She is always alert and ever persistent in her prayers for fellow believers.
4. Pray toward the future faith of one another. Imagine being Peter and knowing that Jesus was continuously praying for you, always encouraging you, and that He had the insights of heaven to pray specific prayers that framed your destiny. That must have been a comfort to Peter, that is, until Jesus warned him that Satan had asked to sift Peter like wheat—and that it was going to be painful.
Yet, Jesus prayed toward Peter’s future despite Satan’s plan. Jesus assured him, “I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31–32).
Of course, God answered that prayer powerfully following Peter’s denial of Christ and subsequent repentance, and it culminated in significant ministry.
It’s possible that Satan has asked to sift each of us. We live in such a dark and tempting world that we may be just one poor decision away from personal devastation. Recognizing that our children, spouse, or friends might at any time succumb to the sifting of Satan, we need to pray toward their future. Regardless of the potential sin or failure, we can be praying in advance that our loved ones will not fall away from the faith but will eventually repent and experience the good future God has planned for them.
Battling Together
Paul pleads for his beloved friends to pray for him, but first he asks that they pray for all believers everywhere. If you are a follower of Christ who is committed to the advancement of the Kingdom of God—and you live in this fallen world ruled by evil principalities and powers—you can expect trials and opposition. In fact, Peter wonders why we are surprised when opposition rises against us (1 Peter 4:12).
But Peter also reminds us that fellow believers around the world experience extraordinary suffering and persecution for the sake of Christ (1 Peter 5:9). We can pray for friends we may never meet on earth.
British journalist Dan Wooding describes the plight of Alexander Ogorodnikov, a Christian dissident who spent many years in the Gulag. After five years of imprisonment, he wrote to Mikhail Gorbachev and asked if he could be executed by a firing squad. During his long, hopeless years in prison, he had not received one visit or even a letter from a Christian.
Wooding heard of this fellow believer’s anguish and organized a letter-writing campaign, urging Christians around the world to pray for Alexander and send messages of hope.
Although Alexander was never allowed to read the letters, his guards took him into a room to see sacks of mail addressed to him. He was overwhelmed to realize that people really did care about him.
From that point on, he felt the prayers of God’s people. When the guards placed him in a punishment cell, hoping he would freeze to death, Alexander would suddenly feel God’s arms wrap around him, warming him. He sensed God was waking people up at that moment to pray for him night after night.
Eventually Alexander was released. And he testified that he knew unknown friends around the world were faithful to pray for him.1
We Need Each Other
If you are a follower of Christ, Satan has targeted you for destruction, discouragement, and despair. That’s the reality of spiritual warfare. In this evil world, we desperately need God—and we most certainly need each other.
Let’s keep on praying always for all the saints. And let your fellow believers know “you’ve got their backs.”
1Assist News Service, May 20, 2012, “One Down, Two More to Go” (assistnews.net).
CAROL MADISON is the editor of Prayer Connect magazine and the author of Prayer That’s Caught and Taught. She is also the compiling editor of Do It Again, Lord, a 30-day prayer guide for revival and spiritual awakening.
