Skip to main content

When I got this assignment I thought to myself “How am I going to think of 30 people to pray for?”  When I made my list I ended up with close to 60!  So I had to narrow.  I didn’t want to narrow, but knew I needed to.  I started with the guys in my discipleship group, I then chose those who had impacted my life and were impacting others, I then went through family members, people at work, and other close friends of mine.  I started making my list a week back when I was checking the 30 day challenge to see if it would work with my discipleship group.  I numbered everybody 1 to 30 and began to see who was on the day I chose.  So I emailed a prayer to my friend that day.  I thought it would be easiest and most “efficient” to pray this way.  The next day my Dad was on my list.  Just after lunch he walked right into my office and I totally chickened out.  A couple of days later we had discipleship group and I shared my experience with the group about not praying for my dad.  One of my good friends Chris piped up and said “I challenge you to pray for your dad tomorrow.”  The next day came and it was 8pm at night and knew I had to take this challenge on.  I called my dad and asked him how I could pray for him.  He was very thankful and gave me his few requests.  I got to pray with him and just thanked God for how I have seen God work in his life and how well he has loved and served people.  I thanked him for modeling what it looks like to share the blessings God gives.  I almost started crying many times praying how he modeled what a Godly man should be.  When I got done he thanked me.  Then it hit me, I had never prayed for my dad before!  Not in my 34 years of life!  How crazy is that.

 

It truly blessed my dad but it blessed me even more!  

 

We as a discipleship group of 9 guys decided to go through this together.  So today is the first day of the challenge this time and I have been mulling around in my head how I was going to do this.  Texting would be easiest but I feel like we should be praying out loud for each other more.  So I am going to call whoever is on my list on that day and ask them “how can I pray for you?” and then pray for them immediately.  Let’s stop telling people we are going to pray for them!  Let’s pray for them on the spot.  Outloud!  I have been doing this lately with my two boys who are in 6th and 7th grade as I bring them to school as well.  The other morning I prayed they would be filled with the spirit and you know what…it worked.  I want to make this a habit with all kinds of people.  Today I used voxer to ask a good friend of mine who is training people to go to unreached people groups what to pray for.  He responded back a few hours later and I prayed for him. Voxer is the way we communicate because we are both busy and we are rarely available at the same time.  It has worked great for us!  My list of 30 is done now and am going to put each person in my google calendar and have it repeat every 30 days so it becomes automatic.  By the way I am still having a hard time whittling my list of 60 to 30 so I am going to keep a spreadsheet of the other 30 so I can pray for them as well.

Justin Schuiteman

Author Justin Schuiteman

I am first of all a Jesus follower who is passionate about reaching the unreached, discipleship, and helping the hurting. I have an amazing wife, who is my best friend, and 4 children 4, 7, 13, & 14. 8 years ago God got a hold of us and life has not been the same since!

More posts by Justin Schuiteman

Join the discussion One Comment