Did You Stop Praying for Yourself?

Let me start with something I think a lot of us do without even thinking about it. And I want to talk to my prayer warriors because I think this is something that is probably going to resonate with you guys the most. Okay, so you sit down to pray and you start going down your list. You pray for your child by name because you know exactly what they're walking through right now. You pray for your friend, the one who's waiting on test results that they haven't even told many people about. You lift up that marriage you've been carrying quietly, the prodigal child you refuse to stop believing for the coworker, the neighbor, that situation at church. You know these prayers by heart. You've been praying some of them for years now. And then you say amen. And in the quiet, right after that amen, it catches you. You never once said your own name. Not once. You prayed for everyone you're carrying, and you left yourself off the list again. And here's the part I want you to sit with for a second. It's not that you forgot, it's that somewhere along the way, you decided you were the one person on that list who could wait. Hi, I'm Melissa, and this is my question for you. This is a space where we slow down, get honest, and sit with one question. The kind of question that helps you reconnect with God right in the middle of your real ordinary life. So for a few weeks now, we've been walking through the prayers I stopped praying, the prayers that we let go quiet. And today, we're turning that in a direction that might be the most tender one yet. Because this week, it's not about the prayer you stop praying for a situation or for someone you love. This week, my question for you is this Did you stop praying for yourself? And if you're the one who prays for everyone else, if you're the go-to, the prayer warrior, the one people call when they need someone to stand in the gap for them, I have a feeling this one's going to land somewhere close for you. So I want to make sure we slow down, take our time, and I don't want to rush through this because I really want you to remember the prayers that maybe you stopped praying for yourself. Okay, let's be honest for a second because I want to talk about exactly how you ended up off your own prayer list. Because for most of us, it didn't start as neglect, it actually started out as love. Somewhere along the way, you learned that praying for everyone else was how you cared for them, and you got good at it. People started counting on you for prayer, for becoming their prayer warrior. You became the one who prays for everyone else, the one who checks in, the one who carries everything for everyone. And that's a real gift. It truly is. It's a holy thing to stand in the gap for the people you love. But here's what nobody warns you about. When you get that good at carrying everyone else, you stop noticing the moment that you set yourself aside. There's no announcement. You don't just decide one day, hey, I no longer matter. It's quieter than that. You just slowly stop including your own hopes, needs, prayers, until you've done it for so long that it actually starts to feel normal, sometimes even holy. And I want to gently push on that word because I think a lot of us have started calling our self-neglect a virtue. We've dressed it up as being low maintenance, as being selfless. It's not wanting to bother God with our little things when other people have so much more to worry about and when other people have it so much worse than we do. But God never wants asked you to disappear in order to love people well. So I want to take you to something Jesus said, and I want to read it slowly because I think most of us have only ever heard half of it. Someone asked Jesus to name the greatest commandment, and he gives them two love God with all your heart. And then this one in Mark chapter 12, verse 31, he says, Love your neighbor as yourself. Now, a few weeks back in this series, we sat with what it means to love your neighbor and keep praying for them and to stand in the gap for them. And if you're the go-to person, you have that part down pat that you have built your whole life around the first half of that sentence. But I want you to read it again love your neighbor as yourself, as yourself. He's comparing the two. Love them the way you'd want to be loved. Want good things for them like you'd want good things for yourself. The whole command only works if you're in the picture too. Jesus didn't say love your neighbor instead of yourself. He didn't say love everybody and let yourself disappear. He just kind of assumed you'd be in there, that you'd bring your own heart to God too, that you'd pray for yourself with some of that same fight you pray for everyone else. So that last part was never the part to skip. You were supposed to be in there the whole time. And here's the quiet thing that's happened to so many of us we kept the first part of that command, and the second half just kind of slipped away. Not on purpose, right? Because no one decides to stop caring about themselves. You were just so busy loving everybody else that you stopped noticing you left yourself out of it. So let me say it plainly you count too. You are not the exception to the command you've spent your whole life living out for others. And here's what it costs you when you leave yourself off the list for long enough. It's not just unmet needs piling up in a corner, it's something quieter and sadder than that. Proverbs 1312 says it like this hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Hope deferred. That means hope you keep putting off. Hope you keep moving to next month, to next season, once things settle down. The Bible says a heart can actually get sick like that. Not all at once, right? Not suddenly, not something dramatic, but just a slow dimming that you barely notice because you're so busy tending to everyone else's needs. Because I don't just want you to think about your needs today. I want you to think about the thing underneath the needs, the dream that you used to have, before your life filled all the way up with other people's emergencies, with other people's prayer requests. Think about the prayer that you used to pray for yourself with your whole chest, your whole heart, back before you stopped even thinking about yourself and started putting everyone first. Maybe it was a calling, maybe it was a healing, it could have been a relationship or door you hoped would open, or just a quiet version of your life that felt like yours. You didn't decide to give it up. And that's the thing. You just stopped mentioning it to other people, then to yourself, and eventually to God. It just fell out of your prayer life, off your prayer list. And a hope you stopped naming is a hope deferred. You buried it so deep under so many other people's needs that some of you have honestly forgotten you ever wanted it at all. And I want you to remember that today. Now, I want you to hear me because this is the part the go-to person needs to hear the most. So for all my prayer warriors, I want you to listen up. You might be thinking, isn't it selfish to ask God for myself when so many people need so much more than I do? Listen to how Jesus answers that. Let's look at Matthew chapter 7. Jesus says, Ask and it will be given to you for everyone who asks receive. And then he says, How much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? That's not the voice of a God who's annoyed that you finally showed up for yourself. That's a father. And any parent will tell you there's a particular kind of ache in watching your child take care of everyone else and never once let you do something for them. You have spent years at God's door advocating for everyone else, and he has been waiting this whole time for you to ask him for you. So I'm going to ask you the question I think he's been wanting you to ask. And I don't want you to answer for your child, your spouse, your friend, or anybody that may be on your prayer list. I want you to answer this specifically for you. What do you want? What have you been needing or quietly longing for that you decided could wait? If your mind went quiet, if you couldn't even find it, that's not failure. That's just the cost of years of putting yourself last, finally showing up. Stay with the question anyway, and let it be a little uncomfortable. I I fully appreciate that this is something that you probably haven't thought about for a very long time because you've been so busy thinking about everyone else. But I want you to take the time and get quiet and just remember you and your needs, your prayers, your hopes, all the things that you stopped asking for. So if you have your journal nearby, here's what I'd like for you to actually write down this week. Don't just think about it in the car the way we sometimes do. This one's so important. I really want you to take some time and write this one down. What have I been needing or quietly hoping for that I decided could wait? And then the even braver question is what's one prayer I used to pray for myself that I've gone silent on? And what would it take to pray it again? You don't have to fix any of it today. We never want to rush to an answer. You just have to stop pretending that you're not on the list. Pick up the prayer again. Say your own name this time and remember your prayers for once. Because God is not asking you to stop praying for the people you love. Keep praying for them, pray fiercely, call them by name and pray the way you always have. Because that's not the problem. He's just asking why you went silent about yourself, why you kept the love your neighbor and quietly deleted the as yourself. Why you decided you were the one person on that list who could wait. You're not. And you never were. The same God you've trusted with everyone else's name is leaning in right now, waiting to hear you say your own name, to hear you pick up the prayer you set down so long ago that you almost forgot it was even a prayer of yours. So ask it out loud for yourself. Next week, we're gonna take this one step further as we come toward the close of this series because maybe the prayer is one thing, and praying it again out loud after all this time, that can cost you something. And we're gonna sit with that together. But for this week, I want you to just answer the question. Let yourself be one of the ones you pray for. Before you go, if today's question stayed with you, I'd love to keep the conversation going. Each week, I send a short email called This Week's Question, a Quiet Invitation, and it's a simple reflection to help you stay grounded, to pay attention, to dive deeper into God's Word, and to walk with God throughout your week. You can sign up at myquestion for you dot com, bringing you encouragement for your spirit and wisdom for your walk.