People often request prayer, or I am often moved to prayer for others. But then I begin to wonder how best to pray for them. Not so much because God needs me to say the right words, but because I feel helpless and don't know what to say in the face of their need. And then my not knowing becomes the subject of my prayer: "Show me how to pray!"
And one day the thought came to me to study John 17, Jesus' prayer for his disciples the night before He died. It seemed to me that His prayer could become the pattern for my own:
I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.
First, gratitude for "those you have given me," for the richness of the gift You have given me all my life: for parents, brothers and sisters, children, friends, business associates, neighbors, advisors, mentors, teachers, spouse .... once I begin to make a list, I am overwhelmed with gratitude, with thanksgiving for all I have been given through these, the ones the Father has given to me. So my prayer begins with thanksgiving for the person I am praying for.
...they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name---the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.....I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. ...My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.
Jesus prays that those he loves will be protected by the power of the Name, just as he has been protecting them by that name all this time. How many times have we been protected by the prayers of our parents, our teachers, our priests, of those who love us and pray for us? We cannot know the answer to that question now, but I suspect it will be revealed to us in the next life. And so, after thanksgiving, I pray for protection for those I love -- for their physical safety and health, for their spiritual safety and inner balance, or connection with God.
Scripture tells us, "The Name of our God is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe" (Prov. 18:10). All of Psalm 20 probably constitutes the best prayer we can pray for those we love:
May the Lord answer you when you are in distress; may the Name of the God of Jacob protect you. May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion. May he remember all your sacrifices and accept your burnt offerings. May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. We will shout for joy when you are victorious and will lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests...Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
So when Jesus invokes the Name (ha Shem, in Hebrew) of His Father and God over his disciples, he is giving them the protection of a strong tower because he knew that they would be hated, even as He was hated.
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth...for them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
St. John the Evangelist says, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth" (3 Jn. 4). C. S. Lewis says that our joy in God's word, or instruction, is like that of someone who finally steps on solid ground after a disastrous shortcut slogging through muddy fields. And the beginning of John's Gospel testifies, "the true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world." And so, finally, I pray that those I love will walk in the truth, find solid ground, and rejoice in the light that gives life, strength, and joy to those that find it.
Thanksgiving, protection, physical and spiritual health, and truth -- all based on the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper for his friends. We cannot do better than that!
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