bearing burdens, bearing sins

Tonight I was reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer before bed. (Note to self: DB is not light reading before bedtime.) It’s gotten me thinking about my prayers. I’ve come to the conclusion that my attitude on prayer is a direct result of my perspective of prayer. Last night I learned that prayer is a believer’s communication with God. I’m sure the ipso facto of that entails the communication of other believer’s needs and so on, but tonight something very tenable came out of my reading. It’s more than just needs.

I’m being very roundabout and confusing so I’ll try and get right to the point tonight.

Previous perspective: Prayer is communicating needs of myself and others

Current perspective: MY prayer is the willful bearing up of the sin and corruption of my brothers and sisters, willingly choosing the suffering of corporate burdens over the contemplation of a life less occupied.

This quote is how arrive to my conclusion,
“Just as Christ bears our burdens, so also are we to bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters. The law of Christ which must be fulfilled is the bearing of the Cross. The burden of my brother and sister that I am to bear is not only that person’s external fate, that person’s character and personality, but is in a very real sense that person’s SIN.
Pretty wild. He’s suggesting that my prayers are the bearing of my brother’s sins and my sister’s sins. When I pray for my friend’s issues with sin, I’m not just announcing to god some point of contention that must be dealt with, I’m exacting his sins upon me. I’m taking his sin’s burden upon my own shoulders and helping him lift it up. I’m working and being strained dry for no other reason than the grand love I have for my brothers and sisters.

Tonight I found out prayer is not a matter of reporting the news, but breaking a sweat making the wrongs right again. there really is no better way to be a friend than to suffer upon yourself the cross that they bear -- to suffer their sins as your own, but not merely as your own, rather reckoning them your own! If this is a proper understanding of prayer is alive and it matters, it is moving and important. My best friends sins are at stake! what an amazing gift prayer is.