Breathing: How To Give Spiritual CPR

Breath is life. The object of CPR is to breathe for a person who cannot breathe on his/her own. In a spiri­tual sense, sinners may be so weak that they are un­able to make it alone. The soulwinner is their only link to life. Here are ways you can breathe for lost souls.

Pray for them. Prayer is the most powerful force that we, as mortals, can employ. Begin immediately to intercede in prayer for the lost soul you desire to win to God. Pray to bind the powers of Satan. Pray that God will give them honesty and courage to repent. Pray to eradicate every barrier to his/her salvation. Pray to gain more insight and wisdom to deal with this person. Pray until you have enter­ed into spiritual war­fare, wrestling for this person’s soul. Pray on until you have an assurance of victory.

Abraham prayed until Lot was deliv­ered from Sodom. Hannah prayed until God gave her a son. The early church prayed and they witnessed with great bold­ness. When the Apostles were imprisoned, they prayed until deliverance came. Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel all pray­ed interces­sory prayers for their people. Paul often prayed for the lost. Christ, himself, offered the greatest example we have of interces­sory prayer in John 17. The greater burden you have for souls, the more you will pray for them.

Pray with them. Praying with people is different than praying for them. Just as CPR assists a victim in breathing because he/she cannot breathe alone, pray­ing with a person does the same thing spiritually. As you stand or kneel beside a person, you supply the basic ideas, the words and even the tone of voice as a guide or exam­ple for prayer. It may go something like this:

“Lord, we confess our need of you right now. We’ve tried so many times and ways to find answers for our lives, but nothing has worked. We are sorry for every sin. We ask for your forgiveness for all of them. Jesus, we love you, we praise you, we exalt your wonderful name…”

Jesus taught his disciples to pray by quoting the prayer we call “The Lord’s Prayer” today. He did this in direct re­sponse to their request, “Lord, teach us to pray. He did not assume that they could do it by just explaining to them the theory of prayer. He modeled it for them.

While praying with a person, use the scripture to give more authority to your words. Pray about specific needs that you are aware about in this person’s life. It may even help to place your hand on his/her shoulder during the prayer.

After prayer, let the one you are helping know what you were doing. “Tom, I was praying the kind of prayer you need to pray on your own. Ask God for for­giveness just like I was praying about. Worship the Lord by saying uplifting and adoring words to Him. He created us to worship Him. The Bible tells us ‘by him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his na­me.’” Hebrews 13:15. Praying with a person this way both en­courages and instructs him/her. It is spir­itual CPR.

Befriend them. Earlier, we men­tioned the importance of true friendship in a soulwinning context. Friendship is, above all, an attitude. Here are some ways you can show that you are a friend:

1. Accept him/her as a person. Again, this can be done without approving specific actions or attitudes.

2. Keep everything you hear in strict confidence. No principle of friendship is more important than this. Once a person gets word that you shared a confidence with a fellow worker, family member, or classmate, you will lose all the work you’ve invested in him/her.

3. Express your appreciation or ad­miration for specific traits, qualities or actions in or by this person. Many people go for months or years without hearing positive comments about themsel­ves. Avoid flattering, but focus on areas in which you can honestly pay valid compliments.

4. Be a sounding board for his/her ideas and views. Take these statements seriously. If you disagree, say so in a non-threatening, non-judgmental way. Say something like, “Tom, let’s see what the Bible has to say about that.” Or, “Mary, I understand what you’re saying, but let’s see where that will lead you eventually.” The important point is that you hear this person out.

5. Listen actively to this person. Communication experts greatly stress this principle. In active listening, you must stop a person after each point is made, repeat it back to him/her in your own words, and ask, “Is this what you’re saying? Do I have this right?” This ac­complishes two things. First, you are clarifying the subject for both of you. It forces you to clear up any muddled or gray areas, and establish the important facts. Second, by repeating statements in this manner, you make it easier to remember what was said.

6. Spend time with them. Nothing you give is as meaningful as your time. The hurting person is looking for someone who will help bear painful realities. Never act as if you are in a hurry to get away from a person. If you have other pressing obliga­tions, say so. Most of the time, people will understand. Make it clear, however, that you do want to talk with them. Set a time when you can get together.

Occasionally, allocate larger blocks of time to spend with this person. Often, a forty-minute lunch break won’t allow the deeper pain and confusion to find expres­sion. It may take an entire morning, after­noon or evening to really talk things out. Many subjects are so sensitive that they only emerge in the right setting. Time can pro­duce results that prying, cajoling or pres­suring cannot yield.

Given your schedule and situation, it may be impossible for you to give this kind of time to people. As an alternative, con­sider invol­ving them in your family, job or leisure activities. Can they come to your home for dinner? Can they go with you to get something for your work? Can they play racquetball, go shopping or fishing with you? Once you start thinking about the possibilities, you will come up with many options.

7.  Face problems with them. You probably have often heard the term “moral support”. Anyone in a difficult situation finds it comfor­ting to be with a close friend. Perhaps you can be at a surgery with a person. Maybe you can show up in court if he/she is in a legal battle. If he/she has to confront someone else in a potentially volatile situation, your presence may be appreciated. These gestures speak loudly. They say that you are willing to bear the brunt of the blows along with your friend. Words can­not express how much this means.

Many times we shy away from these encounters because we think there’s nothing we can say or do. That is wrong thinking. Don’t feel that you have to give advice. You don’t have to come up with any ans­wers. That is neither expected nor wanted. You can be there, however, to minister on the higher level of prayer, faith and spiritual comfort, not to offer professional counsel. People need to look at you and say, “You were there for me when I needed you.”

8.  Legitimize their feelings. A fine line exists here. We must learn to affirm a person’s feelings, even when we disagree, some­times fervently, with those feelings. Remember, feelings are always correct even though the facts may be incorrect. Emotions register in a totally different way than reason. Many times, we react so strong­ly to the feelings, that we blurt out a judg­ment. This happens espec­ially when a moral issue arises. The person we are dealing with may be looking for the slightest indication of disapproval or shock on your part. Once that look appears, the conversation is closed as far as he/she is concerned.

When you encounter this kind of situation, use affir­ming words and phrases often. These may include, “I under­stand,” “that makes sense to me,” or “I would pro­bably feel the same way if I were in your shoes.” It is important for this person to know that you don’t think he/she is stupid or incompetent.

You will often find that people already feel badly about certain matters. If you are able to defer judgment and deal only with the actual problem, you may get them to express their own true feelings. While they may be defensive and argumentative at first, deep down they may be agonizing over guilt and shame. The real battleground is pro­bably not the surface issue. More than likely, the true struggle is with the deeper feelings within them.

“Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the coun­sels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.” I Corinthians 4:5.