Many years ago, I stood before a group of fellow writers and God to make a 10/10 commitment. That 10/10 commitment was to read my bible every day for at least 10 minutes and spend at least 10 minutes in prayer every day. You can read more about the 10/10 commitment here. I would encourage anyone who is struggling with having a quiet time to join me in making the 10/10 commitment, and this might be a great way to get started.
The other night I sat down to do my 10 minutes of prayer time, but thought I might look at Facebook for a few minutes before hand. When I started scrolling through my news feed, I began to see various people with various prayer needs and decided it would be a great idea to use my prayer time to prayer walk my news feed.
Here are some examples of what I saw that I was able to pray for:
A mom with a child who has a potential scary health problem.
A man and woman in a romantic relationship.
A woman who is fighting cancer.
A family who is doing well, and I prayed for God’s blessing on their family.
A family who had just recently come out of a rough season in their lives.
A Christian who might be falling away from the truth.
It was amazing to me. Sometimes, during my prayers, I get stumped on what I should pray for next. In reality, I know there is no reason I should ever be stumped on what to pray about when I could pray about a myriad of things like my neighbors, our country’s leaders, people on drugs, widows, children sold into sex trafficking, etc. Even worse, I have to admit, I might find myself sometimes praying only for myself or my kids or my family or whatever is in my immediate circle. Prayer walking my Facebook news feed was such a great experience that I wanted to share the idea with others.
The news feed took me out of my own self-centered world where I could see what others were going through. One by one I prayed for them knowing that God was so in control of everything that he could control what I saw and prayed for.
Imagine a group of Christian believers, not walking door to door, but being able to get a glimpse of what is going on in so many different homes across this nation and even across the world. Imagine what God could do through us through prayer? If I prayed for the people on my news feed, you prayed for your people, and someone else prayed for their people, what could God possible do through us?
I had a pastor once who said that Satan hates for you to be in prayer with God. I have used the following illustration with my kids. I could know all of my child’s favorite foods, colors, hobbies, etc. However, if I never spoke to them, they would never know they were truly loved by me. The same with Jesus Christ. We can know our Bible and all the great stories, but it would make it pretty tough to be in right relationship with our Lord and Savior if we never spoke to Him.
So, this week as you scroll yourself through your Facebook news feed (which I think most of us to do a time or two) remember to pray for those you are seeing along the way. Let us “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the love of Christ.” (Galataians, 6:2, ESV)