This post is part of a prayer challenge, 21 Days of Prayers For Your Friends. If you would like more information about the full challenge with daily email prayer guides, I invite you to find it here.
Whether it’s an easy relationship, where the conversation flows, honest and filter-free, warmth abounds, and conflicts are few…
or whether it’s a hard relationship, where personalities clash, common ground is minimal, and hurt feelings are plentiful…
relationships are gifts.
The relationships that challenge us refine us. They’re tools in the hand of our loving God, who uses them to stretch us and shape us and mold us into the image of His Son.
So take a moment and thank God for your relationship with your friend, and then lift to Him these prayers for the other relationships in her life.
Prayers for Your Friend’s Relationships
Ask the Lord to help your friend put all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander away from her, along with all malice. Pray that He would give her a kind and tender heart that is willing to forgive in the same way she’s been forgiven by God (Ephesians 4:31-32).
Acknowledge to God that good sense will make your friend slow to anger, and it is her glory to overlook an offense (Proverbs 19:11). Pray that God would help her not be easily offended by the words, actions, or attitudes of others.
Pray that God would help her handle conflicts biblically, having the courage to approach the other person one-on-one before seeking the intervention of others (Matthew 18:15-17).
Ask that God’s grace would equip your friend to do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but to humbly count others more significant than herself. Pray that He would help her look out for the interests of others and not just her own. Beg Him to grant her the humility that Christ exemplified when He emptied Himself of all rights and privileges, and took on the form of a servant (Philippians 2:3-7). Ask Him to show your friend specific ways to serve in the midst of a hard relationship.
Affirm the truth that one who does not love others cannot love God. Pray that God would help your friend love others the way He loves them, and the way He has loved her even when she is unlovable (I John 4:20-21).
Pray that your friend wouldn’t repay evil for evil, but would instead do what is honorable in the sight of all. Pray that as far as it depends on her, she would live peaceably with all. Ask God to help her trust Him to take care of any vengeance that is due (Romans 12:17-19).
Pray that your friend would be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, understanding that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:19-20). Acknowledge the truth that a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (Proverbs 15:1). Pray that God would give her a gentle spirit evidenced by soft replies.
Pray that God would help your friend to honor her father and her mother all the days of her life (Exodus 20:12). Ask that He would guide her in treating her parents with respect, not rebuking them but encouraging them with a pure heart (I Timothy 5:1-2).
Ask that God would help your friend to be careful to keep her soul diligently, so that she does not forget the things which her eyes have seen and they do not depart from her heart all the days of her life; but that she would be faithful to make them known to her children and her grandchildren (Deuteronomy 4:9).
When it comes to her Christian brothers and sisters, pray that she would follow God’s instructions given through Paul: “Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.” (2 Corinthians 13:11)
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask for Your blessing over my friend’s relationships. Use my friend as a conduit of your grace in the lives of others. And use her relationships to continue molding her into Your image. It’s in the name of my Savior, Jesus Christ, that I pray. Amen.
If you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to sign up for the rest of the prayer challenge! It will be a source of blessing in your life (and your friend’s life) as you continue to pray the Scriptures over her.
