Social media can provide serious insight into people’s lives. Obviously, social media has a very selective approach to communication, as we post only what we want others to see, but even with all of its limitations, social media still provides a window into the soul of its users.
Those of us who post on social media will usually post about our joys and sorrows. Graduations, weddings, and sports competitions get photo dumps, and grandparents need no reason to post about their grandkids! We want others to share in our joy.
When there is a medical emergency, tragedy, or someone passes away, we usually let people know. In doing so, we express our need for support from those we know and love.
In the Comments
Not long after I started using Facebook, I noticed something interesting that occurred when readers sought to comfort those posting about serious trials, loss, or grief. I saw that Christians often respond to their friend’s post with, “I am praying for you.” If the one suffering was a Christian, Christians would often comfort them with the Word of God as well. If the one suffering was an unbeliever, the Christian would still mention their prayers for them. The Christians had no hesitancy about their ability to pray for their hurting loved ones.
On the other hand, I noticed that unbelievers (non-Christians) had a quandary. While some of them thought they had an audience with God and would mention praying, most of them did not. How would a non-Christian respond to suffering and grief in the lives of loved ones who post on social media? They could not respond like the Christians did. I began to pay attention to the many alternative responses that unbelievers gave when they sought to express love and comfort.
Ineffective attempts at comfort
I observed that unbelievers would post things like: “I am wishing healing for you,” “giving good energy to you,” “sending good vibes,” “wishing the best,” “good luck,” or a generic “prayers,” which often seems to mean something like, “I am thinking about you warmly in my spirit,” or “I am thinking about you.”
I Googled “sending good vibes” and the screenshot below shows the first set of results:
Such expressions lead to all kinds of questions. What is this good energy? Where does it come from? Is luck all you have to offer? Who are you praying to, if it is not to God our Creator? Are we left completely to ourselves in suffering and grief to the point that only warm thoughts from loved ones can help comfort?
How we attempt to comfort the suffering reflects our relationship to God.
The Christian’s Response
Christians can serve their suffering friends through prayer because they know they are on “praying ground.” What makes them so confident that God hears their prayers? Are they being overconfident or proud when they publicly state they will pray? Not at all. Believers in Jesus Christ have been made right with God though Jesus. Their sin, guilt, and shame have been taken away. Now they are a child of God. They have a new relationship with God Himself through their Savior and Lord. They not only can pray, but they have the right to pray!
Why do Christians have this right to pray? Because “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ[1]” and “rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Rom 5:1, 11). Because “He (Jesus) himself bore our sins in his body on the tree (the cross), that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet 2:24). Because “to all who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (Jn 1:12). And because “you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry (to God), ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rom 8:15).
Because of what Jesus did for us to make us right with God, we Christians have the right to pray. This allows us to confidently pray on behalf of others, knowing that our God hears us.
The Unbeliever’s Response
Non-Christians are not in a position to pray before God. Scripture teaches us that sin and guilt come between God and man. Because of sin, unbelievers have no right to pray. God describes them as “dead…sons of disobedience…children of wrath (deserving only God’s anger) …having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:1-12).
Cut off from God because of sin, they cannot intercede in prayer to Him on behalf of others, no matter how much they love them. The unbeliever may greatly love and wish the best for those suffering, but they have no real hope, no real comfort to offer. Hope and comfort come from God alone. Unbelievers cannot access these, for they have no relationship with God. But this can change!
The Remedy
There is one prayer God waits to hear from the unbeliever, and that is the prayer of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. This is the prayer to receive what Jesus did in His life, death on the cross, and resurrection on our behalf. It is confession of our sinfulness to God, turning from our own way of sin, and turning to God for forgiveness through Jesus.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). We must “turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thess. 1:9), “turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God” that we might “receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by me (set apart by Jesus).” We must “repent and turn to God performing deeds in keeping with repentance” (Acts 26:18, 20). “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom 10:13).
Do you have a right to pray?
This prayer, this faith in Jesus Christ, activates salvation from our guilt and shame before God and makes us right with Him. It is then, and only then, that we have a right to pray to God. Those reconciled to God through Jesus have confidence in prayer. They have comfort and hope to offer in Jesus because they can obtain mercy and grace to help in time of need:
“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16).
[1] All Scripture quotations are in the ESV unless otherwise noted.
