What about when you sense that you should pray for someone, but you don’t know for sure what to pray about? Or what if you and a friend agreed you would pray for each other every day, even though neither of you would know the details of what the other person was doing from day to day?

Paul’s great prayer for the Ephesian church provides a terrific basis for how you could pray in those circumstances (Ephesians 3:16-21). It’s pretty easy to use it: put that person’s name in the blank, and then pick the appropriate pronoun as you go along: for example, “Hear my prayer for Mary … that she may be strengthened in her inner being … ”

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Hear my prayer for ______, O Lord.

I pray that you may grant, in accordance with the riches of your glory, that s/he may be strengthened in his/her inner being with power through your Spirit.

I pray that you will dwell in his/her heart by faith, as s/he is established and grounded in your love.

I pray that s/he may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, the breadth and length and height and depth of your love: to know this love that surpasses knowledge.

I pray that s/he may be filled with all your fullness, O God.

By the power at work within us you are able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine. To you be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.