I love K-dramas (for the uninitiated K-dramas are scripted Korean television series)! I love how the dramas are constructed. I appreciate the fluffy rom-coms full of unrealistically beautiful people. I like that the series are usually just one season so I can get sucked in and still move on quickly. Most of the series I have come across so far are creative, quirky and self-aware, just like me.

Whenever I start a new series I pop onto Google first to get reviews and a little background information because I don’t really have many friends who watch K-dramas so I have to go to the internet to try and figure out if a new series will be worth my time (because we all know the internet is a reliable source of information). Recently, I was watching a series where the lead romantic couple are spouses in real life who met during the filming of the series. As I was watching a scene where this couple were on screen together I was hit by the thought that their marriage was in trouble. It was an odd moment but I have had enough odd moments to recognize when God is saying something so I shut off my television and started praying. I felt a heavy need to pray for them off and on all day, sometimes the pain I felt for them was so intense I couldn’t speak, I could only cry. I went to bed that night with a peace that I had obeyed God but a heart broken for these complete strangers on the other side of the globe. Imagine my shock the next morning when I turned my phone on and the first story in my Google news feed was an announcement that this couple was pursuing a divorce!

As I read the article, Ezekiel 22: 30 sprang to mind. God is speaking and he says “And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.” Ezekiel talks about repairing walls in several different chapters. These passages speak to a lack of care in securing the cities and protecting those inside. They point out that weak places in the protective city walls were neglected and made accessible to enemies. In the church we speak colloquially of “standing in the gap” when we pray for people but I don’t know if we really think about what that means. It is a willingness to shore up and secure weak areas so that God is able to show mercy. He uses us to do his will here on this enemy occupied territory called Earth. He pricks at our spirits to obey and be that person who will build up and stand in the broken places so that He can give grace to the people behind the damaged walls. This is why it is so important to pray no matter how strange it might seem!

From a human perspective stopping what you’re doing to pray for complete strangers because you had a feeling that something is awry is very weird. It just is! Thankfully, those of us who have been made new creatures in Jesus don’t exist on a solely human plain. We have the gift of spiritual eyes. We see things from a different perspective. From a human point of view, I would have absolutely no way to contact this couple. I could try sending DM’s on Instagram but we all know they would never see them. I could fly to Seoul and hover outside their management agency in the off chance that I might see them passing by but then what? I could shout like a lunatic that I knew they were having issues before the news came out because God revealed it to me but I suspect I would find myself in a South Korean psych ward pretty quickly if that were the case. To me, this seems far more weird and certainly less productive than praying. 1 John 5:14 confirms that if we ask according to God’s will, he hears us. Psalm 145:18 says that the Lord is near to all who call on him in truth. Romans 8:26 is one of my favorite verses about prayer because it reminds me that even in praying I don’t carry the weight of responsibility. It says “…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Spending half a Saturday praying certainly cost me less than a trip to a South Korean mental hospital would. It genuinely seems more practical to pray!

I get how you could still be incredulous about the whole thing. Why didn’t God put it on my heart to pray for them months ago? Why didn’t I wake up to see an article that said they were contemplating divorce but had a sudden change of heart and were now reconciling? Why me and not someone who actually knows them and could talk to them? What if I prayed and they still divorce? These are questions far above my pay grade (but I will know the answers in eternity). I like to think that it falls under the covering of 1 Corinthians 1:27, “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;”. It makes no earthly sense that an average woman from a small town in Pennsylvania could influence the lives of the famous and celebrated on another continent but I don’t rely on earthly sense. The long and the short is simply that I was available. I don’t believe I was the only one but what if I was? I was willing to stand in a broken place and give God the opportunity to be merciful. I was found ready to build up a damaged wall through the only means at my disposal…prayer.

I know that prayer isn’t popular in our culture right now. People tell us regularly that it is not enough and I understand the desire for more tangible ways of making change but you cannot convince me that prayer is not effective. I have had too many moments where someone reached out to tell me that they were praying for me right in the middle of a struggle I hadn’t shared with anyone but God. I have seen too many prayers be answered to doubt that prayer is powerful. I am alive solely as the result of prayers that my Grandpa Gill prayed over my Dad’s lifeless body when he drowned at age 14! I know that prayer works and that’s why I am willing to be weird enough to pray, anywhere, anytime, for anyone. If prayer is simply a conversation with the Father who loves me best than why wouldn’t I talk to him about all the thoughts that come to my heart. The Bible is clear about the fruitlessness of selfish prayers but a genuine prayer from an earnest heart will not go unanswered.

If you have a random thought cross your mind for someone, whether you know them or not, stop and send up a prayer. It costs nothing and accomplishes everything! What’s the worst that could happen…miraculous life changes, God at work in the lives of the ordinary and extraordinary, a simple perspective shift on a difficult circumstance…say it ain’t so!!! This world could use a few more weirdos who aren’t afraid to pray outlandish, audacious prayers. I embrace the weirdness that is talking to God about any and everything and my life is so much better for it. I become better by being weird!