The Weight of Prayer (Prayer Summer 2014)

It's Monday morning. I am thinking of many people who have asked me to pray for them. I'm experiencing a heavy overwhelmingness because of the requests, all of which are important, some of which are life-and-death.

I am burdened. This is good. Prayer includes a crying out to God, a fervent petitioning, on behalf of the persons I am praying for.

To pray for others is to carry their burdens so they don't have to go it alone. In my prayer time today I'm coming to God with a bag of heavy burdens. In prayer, in conversation with God, I am deliver these burdens, like heavy stones, to Him.

This is prayer-as-burden-casting. "Cast your burdens on him, for he cares for you." (1 Peter 5:7) This includes the burdens I am carrying for others.