Our modern pace of worldwide connectivity provides amazing connections while leading to debilitating sensory overload.
We live in an ultra-connected world. Recently I sat as a dissertation reader for a church leader in a small country in Southeast Asia. The school he was earning his doctorate from was Asia Pacific Theological Seminary in the Philippines. His faculty supervisor for his work was somewhere in Africa. Key faculty members were in the eastern part of the U.S. and in Tasmania. Other doctoral students attended from various parts of Asia.
It was a zoom call. We gathered from around the globe and various time zones to listen to a student defend his dissertation via a sometimes-spotty internet connection. But it worked.
Our family’s annual custom is to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” each Christmas. The movie, while a great one otherwise, has some theologically weird things in it – humans becoming angels when they die, angels getting their wings, etc. But one of the classic moments is when George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, is about to take his own life and people begin to pray. These people aren’t in the same room, some are oceans away, but they pray for George Bailey nonetheless.
This was a case of local friends getting connected by telegraph and expensive long distance telephone calls. Today friends, strangers even, can be connected around the globe instantly – and at a fraction of the cost – via all kinds of technology and media.
For all the good – think the cost of all of us having to show up in person in the Philippines for this man’s doctoral defense – there are challenges to being instantly connected worldwide.
Sensory overload. As I become aware of needs and concerns everywhere, I run out of capacity to understand, empathize, and act upon those needs. Just as I have no more hours in the day than my grandparents did, I have no more capacity to meet needs than I would have had back in George Bailey’s day.
I am all for our worldwide connectivity. There is much to gain, much good to be achieved.
But we have to remember we are still human. Watching that scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I am reminded that only God has the capacity to hear and respond to every cry for help from every person on this planet. Thanks be to God!
So, given our natural limitations, what can we do to steward our ability to pray for people and their needs? Here are three ideas:
- PRIORITIZE. There are natural priorities such as family and close contacts, people who are in our lives on a regular basis. For example, my wife and I have four adult children and a son-in-law. We are very aware of their needs and concerns and so lift them up in prayer, appropriately, on a regular basis, both as situations arise and as part of our rhythm of prayer. There are others as well, for whom our regular interaction with them makes it easier to be aware of how to pray for them.
- COMMIT. But we also pray with a sense of calling. Who or what areas of our world has God placed as a special burden in our lives? What has the Scriptures told us to commit to prayer? One example would be people in leadership, to pray for our leaders as per the Apostle Paul’s injunction in the book of Romans. People in certain parts of the world, such as countries deemed unreached, or people in certain circumstances of life, such as young people who’ve been traumatized and pushed out of normal family situations.
- AS THEY COME. I’m speaking of “as awareness arises” situations. Often my wife or I will hear of some specific need, and we’ll take time to pray together right then for the situation while it is fresh on our minds. Or I pray for something by myself as I’m seeing a concern mentioned on Facebook or hear of some crisis in the news. Certainly, we do that with needs mentioned in church gatherings on a weekly basis. These might become prayer concerns we commit to or even prioritize, but not necessarily. The Spirit may be leading us to pray just in that moment.
Regardless of how many people or situations we pray for, the important thing is to pray. How well do we understand as believers that prayer is a significant part of our calling, regardless of what else we may be called to?
At the same time, we don’t need to feel guilty because we don’t pray for every need in the world. As I’ve explained, we are not God, nor do we have God’s capacity to be mindful of all needs everywhere.
But we can ask God to help us know how to pray and for whom we should be praying. As Paul again writes, the Spirit helps us know how to pray. And we can ask for the Spirit to do just that.
Specifically, we can ask the Spirit to guide us to pray for people or parts of our world who are more neglected than others when it comes to prayer. Wherever I’ve lived, especially in places with few, if any, believers, I’ve been mindful of people around me who have had no one in their life able to pray for them. That has always been an incredibly sad thought for me – to be so disconnected from the life of faith that there is no one in their life who is a person of faith and thus able to lift them to God in prayer.
Depending on where I’ve lived, I’ve often walked through markets or sat on a bench beside a busy thoroughfare and lifted up people as they’ve passed by. The Spirit, who discerns all hearts, is able to help me know how to pray in each of those “encounters.” And certainly, as friends send me requests, I can do the same. Interceding for people with whom I am only distantly connected.
Is praying for people effective? It is all an act of faith, but faith based on what the scriptures have to say to us.
I have a friend who told me in the past he no longer believed in prayer – as in prayer being something that you ask God for or ask God to make changes. He still believed one could talk with God, but asking God to do something, well, that didn’t make sense in his theology. I’ve still prayed for my friend and his needs, regardless. In such case, the burden of faith is on me.
But in a turn of conversation with him recently, he was sharing of a dire need concerning his wife of many years. They were reaching a very painful stage in her late term care. On the phone, he told me he appreciated my prayers on her behalf. And I responded, with full commitment, that I would be praying for both him and his wife. Shortly after that call, as my wife and I sat down to eat, we lifted up my friends in prayer, asking God to guide and comfort.
Ah, the joys of connectivity. But the strongest connectivity we have is, as I like to put it, the Throne of Grace where we can bring all our concerns to God, who has no limitations in capacity to hear cries for help.
I hope my blogging is not adding to your sensory overload. But if you want to keep up without the added task of looking for my latest post, subscribe here for free and you’ll receive all posts automatically.