Pray for Our Elders — a Scriptural Consideration —
They are not just names read from the platform.
They are men with aging parents. With aching joints. With silent tears prayed out in the car after a shepherding call. They carry within them the congregation’s burdens — but not always the congregation’s understanding.
And they need our prayers.
The Governing Body bears an extraordinary weight — not just of teaching, but of protecting, adjusting, responding. Global crises, legal pressures, spiritual dangers — all of these require continual vigilance and courage. When they make decisions, they do so with trembling awareness of who they represent. “Who is adequate for these things?” Paul once asked (2 Corinthians 2:16, NWT). And yet they go on — for our sake.
So do our local elders.
They do not draft policy — but they must carry it out. In real time. With real people. They interpret direction through the lense of the congregation’s needs: a sudden loss, a spiritual emergency, a fragile conscience unraveling. They have to decide — now — how best to act, even when there’s no perfect answer. They don’t get weeks to deliberate. They get minutes. Sometimes, seconds.
And the result may not always feel right. Sometiems it isn’t.
But that’s exactly why we pray.
We pray for clarity — that Jehovah help them see what we can’t. We pray for tenderness — that they not grow cold from all they carry. We pray for unity — that disagreement not become division. And we pray for humility — theirs, yes, but also ours. That we not assume what we would do better, when we’ve never had to decide.
In a world that mocks spiritual authority and delights in uncovering mistakes, how precious it is when Jehovah’s people say, “We are behind you. Not because you are perfect, but because we love what you’re trying to do.”
Paul said of the congregation in Corinth, “You also can help us by your supplication for us” (2 Corinthians 1:11, NWT).
Yes. You also can help.
So the next time we hear an announcement that doesn’t sit right, or recieve counsel that hurts more than helps, what if our first instinct was not to pull back… but to pray?
What if the heaviness we feel is just a taste of what they carry? What if Jehovah allows us to see it — not so we can judge them — but so we can lift them?
What if the entire congregation knelt, silently, invisibly, beside the elders… and held them up?
We ask them to pray for us. Let us do the same.
He sees their weariness. He sees their efforts. And he sees our prayers — covering them like a shield.
He will guide. He will correct. He will strengthen.
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