Praying In CommunityНамуна

Suffering Together in Prayer

You are different than the other members of your church body. This is why Paul describes your church in terms of a human body. Hands, feet, eyes, ears. It wouldn’t be a body if every part were identical. 

But our tendency is to value ourselves and those who are just like us. We tend to look down on the other parts of the body. Paul insists that the body cannot function in this way. We should instead lift up those parts that are different than us. And then he says something that has huge significance for the way we pray: if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

What does it mean to suffer and rejoice together? It must mean more, but certainly does not mean less, than praying together. When my sister is crying out to God in an anguished appeal for healing or justice or relief, can I say that I am suffering with her if I do not join her on my knees before the Father? If my brother is thanking God for some grace he has received, am I not celebrating only superficially if I do not join him in praising God for what he has done?

A robust individual prayer life is wonderful. But if the church is analogous to a body, then praying in community should be as natural and organic as blood flowing from a single heart through every organ and extremity of the body. Prayer becomes a supernatural connecting point, joining us to one another as we rejoice and suffer together according to God’s design. 

Who is suffering or rejoicing around you? What is stopping you from joining those people in prayer?