Suffering and Friendship: 3 Counter-Cultural Prayers for Your Friends

When I thank my friends, it’s usually for something they have done. But Paul begins his letter to the Philippians by thanking them for who they are.

He thanks God for them, and prays for them with joy. He holds them in his heart, and you can hear his love for them bubbling out in verses 3-6:

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1:3-6

It’s the kind of thing we might feel awkward saying to our friends today. His joy comes from the fact that they hold the same faith. They are partners in the gospel – in that they are mutually saved by the grace of God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For God as his witness he yearns for his friends with the affection of Jesus. And it is his prayer that their love abound more and more.

When Paul prays for their love to abound, he doesn’t mean in a fickle, emotional way. Nor is he saying that he just wants his friends to be happy.

That’s a hard concept to wrap my head around. Isn’t our main priority for our friends for them to find happiness in life? To avoid suffering, loneliness, and hardship, and instead to set their affections on whatever brings them happiness and contentment?

But that’s not what Paul says here. When he talks about abounding in love, he connects love to knowledge and discernment. And those things only come from the Lord. I’m sure he rejoiced when his friends were “happy”, but he also took an eternal perspective. I could be wrong, but I believe he is less concerned with their immediate “happiness” in this passage, and more concerned with their eternal joy that comes from walking in a way that is excellent, pure and blameless in the sight of God.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 1:9-11

I don’t know what their hearts were prone to loving, but I know what my heart is tempted to love. And I know that without the Lord guiding me, my affections will not be pure and blameless in the eyes of Christ.

What a counter-cultural friend Paul was to pray this prayer over his friends. Even in his own suffering, his prayer wasn’t primarily to end his own pain or that his friends would be spared hardship… but rather his prayer was focused on his friends staying close to Jesus.  

Have you ever had a friend (or a loved one) who has walked away from her faith? Maybe life hasn’t worked out the way she thought God had promised her… and she slowly decided that God was holding out, or that God wasn’t real after all. It can be hard to know what to say to friends who are walking this road. But we can learn from Paul’s example and pray these things for them:

1. That they would be a mutual partaker of the grace of Christ.
2. That their affections would be governed by the Holy Spirit.
3. That their lives would bear fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus

All to the glory and praise of God.

So many of you have shared that it was during your season of suffering that you were prompted to pray the most. We can leverage this prayer-passion and use our time of suffering to lift up our friends in prayer. In this quiet, humble act, we are serving our friends even in the middle of our own hardships.

If this feels impossible today, remember Paul’s promise in Philippians 1:6, “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ”.

Jesus loves you more than you know.