Praying for the Devil
I have heard all sorts of strange prayers through the years. But I must say, I’ve never heard of praying for the devil. George Yancy, a professor of philosophy at Emory University, said that when he was a little boy raised in a religious home he once asked his mom if it would be alright for him to pray for the devil. Eventually she said yes.
So the little boy got down on his knees at the end of the day and he prayed,
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
if I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
God bless my mother, my sister, and my friends. And God bless the devil.”
I don’t know about praying for the devil. But I do know that Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27-28). Some people have said that this is the most distinctively Christian of all the Commandments found in the Bible. Certainly, it goes against all our natural impulses.
Some of us might claim that we have no enemies, that we have no “devils” in our life that we need to pray for. But most of us recognize that in fact we do have enemies of various sorts. Perhaps it is someone who has gossiped about us or someone at work who has undermined us. Or we may see as enemies certain politicians who support policies that we believe are destructive to the common good. Or we might think of those involved in ISIS as an enemies.
Truthfully, our first impulse is probably not to get on our knees and pray for these people. But perhaps if we listened to Jesus more deeply we would. That does not mean that we would approve of what they are doing. And praying for them does not suggest that we would not actively stand opposed to their actions. But it would be a way of acknowledging that God has not written them off, regardless of how we might feel about them. As Jesus said, “God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).
It is hard to keep negative feelings in check when we face people who are doing things that we believe are devilish. But we need to embrace the wisdom of scripture: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).
Grace & Peace,
Pastor Craig
Amen, That is the most beautiful, and biblically correct answer I have been searching for in regards to ” should we pray for the devil’?
Thank you
Thank you for putting this so beautifully & in such a way that I could even understand it. As I read “we should overcome evil with good” the little voice in my heart said “the word good here represents Prayer & the word evil represents Satan.” So my takeaway is this…The Lord tells us that we should pray for everyone. The good, the evil, addicted & afflicted and the indifferent we should pray for & even tho Lucifer is the spreader of 4 of those things he too & probably most of all needs our Prayers. Not to gain a closeness to him but to carry out God’s word.
I hadn’t realized that this was such a widespread conversation. I came across Mark Twain’s question (quote) about ‘Who prays for Satan…he being among
sinners the supremest?” It got me to wondering. Some say he doesn’t have a soul, and that means he can’t be redeemed. Others say it’s a waste of time because is destiny is set in stone.
I say it’s more about our souls than it is about his. It seems to me that our earnest efforts to intercede on the behalf of the sinner should an important pillar in our faith.