Praying for Friends

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, Colossians 1:9-11

Paul does a lot of praying for his friends. He’s intentional about praying for the things that really matter - that his friends would grow, that they’d know God more, that the way they spend their days would produce lives of great quality - and he prays for endurance for when the times are just plain hard. In some ways you can imagine Paul praying for his friends in each of the 4 stages of growth (pictured below). How about you - what do you pray for your friends?

Pick a friend or two and pray Paul’s prayer over them, pausing with the phrases that really stand out to you for them. If you’re up for it, pray his prayer over yourself as well, asking God to draw more attention to the phrases that are most important these days.