During my first year in Romania, my relationship with God was developing into more than just devotions and prayer. It was beginning to consume me.
The names and faces of the teens, “my teens”, would come to my mind so often. Each day, I would pray for each one of them by name – recalling events in their lives, recalling the last conversation that I had with each one. I prayed about their needs, their desires, their relationships with each other, their relationships with God.
For the first time, I found that the majority of my prayer time was spent praying for other people. Suddenly, I was not at the center of my prayer life. There were others that I cared for so much and wanted to see brought into a deeper relationship with God. Of course, I was still praying for my own strength, but there was an added blessing in praying for others.
My prayer life was revitalized. It was as if a door was opening, and my prayers were being answered. And instead of just seeing prayers answered in my own life, when I could see them being answered in the faces and lives of others the blessing was all the more real. Seeing a change take place in my life alone after praying always leaves the doubt that maybe I did the changing. Praying for a specific person in a specific way that brings a specific result leaves no doubt that God truly heard and answered my prayer for that person.
