Praying for Loved Ones: Never a Lost Cause

Within the past two years, I have had two very special people abandon me—they weren’t family, except that they were. I guess you could say they weren’t blood related. Yet in the past year, I have felt more a more urgent need to pray for them and their salvation. I know what you are thinking…what if they are saved? What if you are misjudging them? Well then I guess I am misjudging the situation. However, I do know that the way I was treated, didn’t line up with the Bible nor with the teachings of Christ.

So what if I am remiss and I don’t pray for my friends? The best thing you can do for your loved ones is to pray earnestly. We have the assurance of God’s Word that “the earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results” (James 5:16, NLT).

It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to convict of sin, to show the possibility of being made right in God’s sight, and to warn of the danger of neglecting salvation (see John 16:7-11). The Holy Spirit will be faithful to do His work in response to believing prayer, seeking out those for whom the Lord has burdened someone to pray. It is of great importance, however, that you permit the life and love of our Lord Jesus Christ to be seen in you. This in itself will be a tremendous testimony to unsaved loved ones and friends, and will prepare the way for a presentation of the Gospel. Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16, NKJV).

George Mueller, the great Victorian Christian and social reformer, tells a story of persistent prayer in his diary:

                In November 1844, I began to pray for the conversion of five individuals. I prayed every day without a single intermission, whether sick or in health, on the land, on the sea, and whatever the pressure of my engagements might be. Eighteen months elapsed before the first of the five was converted. I thanked God and prayed on for the others. Five years elapsed, and then the second was converted. I thanked God for the second, and prayed on for the other three. Day by day, I continued to pray for them, and six years passed before the third was converted. I thanked God for the three, and went on praying for the other two. These two remained unconverted.

                Thirty-six years later he wrote that the other two, sons of one of Mueller’s friends, were still not converted. He wrote, “But I hope in God, I pray on, and look for the answer. They are not converted yet, but they will be.” In 1897, fifty-two years after he began to pray daily, without interruption, for these two men, they were finally converted—but after he died! Mueller understood what Luke meant when he introduced a parable Jesus told about prayer, saying, “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1).

                As I read this story, my faith is renewed that my prayers will not fall on deaf ears of God—that hopefully someday, my friends will be saved. And while I may never know here on earth what they choose, I hope that sometime in the future, we will walk streets of gold together, and they will know that I never gave up on them.