Pray for me

My son hates country music. He says it's just songs about "I've lost my job, lost my wife, my dog is dead" so of course I make him listen to it in the car, just to prove he's wrong. However, that's not my point...my point is I think we sometimes disguise "feel sorry for me" moments in the form of prayer requests.



I have a dear friend who is dying of cancer, much to early in his life. Yet he doesn't flood my inbox with please pray for me, he doesn't fill out prayer request cards on Sunday mornings with this is my situation, and every single time I see him he asks how I'M doing and when I ask about how he is doing his answer "God is good".



I have another friend who has a situation that is very bad. It's been this way for years. And every time I talk to her it's the same story that begins with please pray for me and launches into how horrible other people are towards her. Please pray for me really means feel sorry for me.



We all have our "crappy" moments in life, some moments last longer than others and some moments are way worse than others. We all have things that we need to be prayed about, things that cause us to say please pray for me in this. I'm in no way saying we shouldn't ask for prayer request....I do it often. What I am saying is this,



Before the words "please pray for me" leave our lips, lets check our motives....is it so we can say "look how bad my life sucks" or is our motive purely to say "this issue in my life still needs prayer"? And if it's truly that you do just still need to know in an out loud way people are praying for you, then may just say it still sucks, keep on praying....



Actually, as I write those words what I feel in my heart is this: maybe a large part of why our "issue" hasn't changed is because we walk around going "it still sucks, keep praying" instead of "God is good, God is moving, everything God does is good"....maybe it's OUR attitudes that suck. I know sometimes I can't see God clearly because I'm so focused on the issue, so focused on poor me; shift the focus...taste and see that the Lord is good. Taste and see...pray for me yes, pray for all of us, but do it with thanksgiving, remembering first that the Lord is good!