Will you... ?

Why does asking someone to pray for me even fall into my mental category of things that are humbling, even humiliating?

Part of it, I think, is that asking others to pray for us is not part of our everyday Christian vocabulary, at least in my experience. The things we pray about are private, right? When I tell someone I will pray for them it seems like it's either a flippant, "this is the right thing to say at this moment," statement, or it's a "look deep into their eyes and pray with them right then and there" kind of thing. Maybe it's a personal integrity issue. When I tell someone I will pray for them, they should know that I will, without any further qualifying statements. "Let your yes be yes and your no, no..."

The other part, and this is the more humbling part, is that when I ask someone to pray for me, I'm asking them to pray for me. On my behalf. In a way I can't. Admitting to someone that you can't do something on your own and then asking them to do it for you is always a humbling experience. But this is what we need more of: someone else to share in the burdens of our lives by praying.