As global workers, we adjust to being apart from loved ones when they are going through difficult situations. We are not always able to pause our global life in order to be by their side. All we can do is encourage from afar and pray.

Wait. I want to take that last sentence back. “All we can do…” That makes it sound like prayer is second-rate. And if we’ve learned anything from Paul, we know that prayer is vitally important to our loved ones as well as to ourselves.

Paul was imprisoned and unable to visit the believers in the churches he cherished. So what did he do? He encouraged them from afar and prayed for them. Paul used prayer as his main means of support for those he loved.

When we look at Paul’s prayers in those letters (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon), we see him thanking God for the people and praying for them to have wisdom and insight so that they might grow in their knowledge of God. Paul prays for them to have confident hope as God’s called children and to be able to understand the depth of God’s love. He asks God to fill them with the fruit of their salvation and to strengthen them with His power so that they may have endurance and patience with joy.

Prayer is valuable. If we pray prayers like Paul’s, we focus on eternal things, and we put our trust and hope in the Lord. We can trust Him to be with our loved ones when we cannot. In this process our own faith is strengthened. We’re reminded that circumstances in this world are passing away. The strength we receive from prayer helps us endure those circumstances, and like Paul, we can even endure them with joy.

The next time you’re longing to be with loved ones in their difficult situations and find yourself encouraging and praying from afar, remember Paul. Let his prayers strengthen your faith and encourage your heart because God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.”