Rule Number Four: pray and make sacrifices for the people in your lives.
Now, of course that’s a cliché, isn’t it? “Oh, I’ll pray for you” and yet, how many of us who say “I’ll pray for you” actually do? Guilty, number one. How many times have I said that and I don’t, or I forget? In fact, every day now I pray “Lord,I pray for all those people I told I’d pray for, and I forgot” and I hope that God remember their names.
But this is really not a cliché. We should be praying and making sacrifices. There’s a family member that I have and I’m not going to mention their name in case they’re listening to this. They decided at a certain time in their late teenage years they were not going to be Catholic anymore in our family. We said “what are we going to do? We can’t force them.” We told them we would love them and we would accept them and then we made prayers and sacrifices. Some members of the family even fasted every Friday for this family member. It didn’t take long before we found out on Facebook that they were going and picketing at abortion clinics and then that they went to confession after 8 years. So that they could have the Eucharist at Easter again. That person said, “I know what you were all doing. You were praying and making sacrifices for me. I knew it!”
This is what we should be doing for our friends and family and even for people we don’t know yet that we’re going to meet on the street or at work. We should be praying and making real sacrifices. We should remember that we should be asking God and praying for people. Remember the unjust judge [and] the elderly woman, the widow I think she was in the Gospel of Luke, who came to the judge at night. She needed justice. She knocked on his door and he came to the window and yelled down “lady, I’m sleeping. Come back tomorrow” and she was insistent and she knocked on the door harder and he says “lady, go away” but eventually, he came down and gave her justice. Why? Because she was persistent. Jesus said “If the judge, even being unjust as he iswould be giving her a response in taking care of her request, how much more your heavenly Father will for you?”
In other words, God has invited us to keep coming back and asking and making sacrifices and praying for people and this is what we should be doing. Don’t tell “I’m praying for you” in a condescendingway because that can often be taken as an insult. I’ve heard that happen. When they argue and it doesn’t go well, and then say “I’ll be praying for you.” This is an insult in a way. I wouldn’t suggest doing that, but there is a way of saying “I’ll pray for you” in a way that is encouraging and lets people know that you’re doing it out of love and concern.
Expect God to answer you, in fact, here’s what I’m going to suggest you do, and this works by the way, and it makes you consistent in it as well. I would say take a piece of paper and draw two lines. Make on one column say “here is what I am going to request” put up on the top “requests I’m making of God” and you may want to put the verse underneath it there “seek and you shall find, ask and it’ll be given, knock and you shall have it open.”
Then, make three columns and then the first column put “Here’s my request:I pray for the soul of so and so. I pray for a chance to witness to so and so. I pray that we can heal a relationship with so and so.” Then put the date in the second problem that you asked that request. Put the date, and then look up the heaven and say “God, over here, I’m going toput the date that my prayer is answered” and put God to the test.He said He’d answer, He said He wants to hear our prayers, that He wants us to ask and care for those around us. So, let’s really do it. Put the request, put the dates you asked the request, and over here, fill those dates as soon as God answers your prayer.
You want to make your life fun and joyful? Do things like this and watch the Lord work because He will, and if we expect him to act, He will do it for us. We may not see it in our lifetime, unfortunately, but know that God is always working not only for our good and to answer our prayers, but He also loves those people that we’re working with and that we’re praying for. He loves them far more than we do. He wants to answer those prayers far more than we want Him to. Even though they have a free will, God will, over time, like a piece is on a chess board, bring them around, bring them to places where they’ll meet up with people who love them and that love God and are willing to talk with them. I would say, really, seriously take praying and making a sacrifice for those people you love and you want to bring them to Christ and to the Church.
So, Rule Number Four: really, really do it. Pray, and make sacrifices for folks.