Why Pray for Caseworkers?

I’m not good at praying for caseworkers. Perhaps that’s a strange sentence to read in a post with the title you read above, but if I’m honest, it’s the truth. Foster parenting, perhaps more than any other experience in life, exposes my desire for control, comfort, and clear expectations.

In moments of unease and uncertainty, my natural tendency is to view our caseworker(s) as a means to an end: they are there to provide me the information I want or to complete the task I would find helpful. It’s much easier for me to view caseworkers in this way than it is for me to spend time making them the focus of my prayers.

Yet, when I do this, I fail in a few ways.

First, I fail to treat other people with the dignity and worth that is inherent in their creation in God’s image (Gen. 1:27-28), and I don’t reflect the love of Christ to those around me (Eph. 5:1-2).

And second, I fail to acknowledge what all foster parents learn, sooner or later: control, comfort, and clear expectations can be difficult to find in foster care!

In what follows, I’d like to share some reminders for myself of the importance of prayer for caseworkers. Even if you don’t resonate with these struggles I’ve described, my hope is that you’ll find some encouragement and direction as you pray, especially for the caseworkers in our lives and communities.

Let’s start with a few basics about prayer. At times, we may take these things for granted, but they provide an important foundation as we begin. First: what is prayer? Second: why do we pray?

God’s Word provides direction on what prayer is. One way Scripture talks about prayer is “calling on the name of the Lord.”

The first time this happens is all the way back in Genesis 4, after the jealous Cain murdered his brother, Abel. Verse 26 tells us that “people began to call on the name of the Lord.”

In various contexts, this is a consistent way prayer is referred to throughout the Bible. Again and again, the Old Testament describes people calling upon God’s name, whether it’s elsewhere in Genesis (e.g., 12:8, 13:4), later in the lives of the prophets (e.g., 1 Kg. 18:24; Zech. 13:9; Is. 41:25), or in the prayers of the Psalms (e.g., Ps. 79:6, 80:16), to name just a few examples.

The Old Testament provides a foundation for the prayers of the New, as people like Peter (Acts 2, 1 Pet. 3) and Paul (e.g., Rom. 9-11, Eph. 3) model calling upon the Lord and exhorting others to do the same. It’s important to note here that prayer isn’t a one-way line of communication.

As J. Gary Millar explains in his book Calling on the Name of the Lord, “to ‘call on the name of [the Lord],’ is not simply to ‘pray’ in any generic sense. To call on the name of Yahweh is to cry to God to come through on his promises, and specifically to rescue and give life to his covenant people.”

It’s easy for us to think of prayer as a time in which we simply present our requests before God, telling him what we need. And yet, prayer is better understood as more communicative and relational, part of a dialog between us and God.

So, we could sum up these things with something like this: prayer is calling upon God, dialoging with him and seeking his provision and action in our lives.

Time and again, we are urged in God’s Word to pray. Perhaps the clearest example is in Paul’s exhortation to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:14-19), but in the largest collection of the prayer in the Bible, the Psalms, we see further encouragement to pray, both by calling out to God and listening to God’s voice (e.g., Ps. 50:7, 15).

Another motivation for prayer comes in 2 Corinthians 1. There, Paul exhorts his audience to pray for his ministry, with the explicit purpose that it will be an opportunity for thanksgiving, blessing, and honor to God (vv. 10-11).

Jesus, in the Lord’s Prayer, also invites his followers to begin prayer in a way that grounds the prayers in God’s name being honored as holy (Matt. 6:9).

So, again, we can summarize what we’ve seen here of reasons we pray: we pray because God commands us and because it brings him glory.

As we consider the Bible’s directions concerning prayer, let’s apply these things to our prayers for caseworkers. As Holly described so nicely in this month’s Prayer Guide, “Our nation’s foster care caseworkers see and experience brokenness each day as they walk with children and families in crises. Their desire is for safety for families, but much more than that they long for healing and restoration for families, a desire close to the heart of God.” Since you’re reading this post, I believe you are someone who cares about the foster care community too.

A key lynchpin in the foster care system is the caseworker, interacting with all individuals in a case to help ensure the wellbeing of children and their families. This role of the caseworker is one that is extremely difficult. They experience situations rife with brokenness, pain, and uncertainty that expose the limits of what one person can do, each and every day.

While these situations can tempt us toward despair, they also remind us of our limits and our great need for God’s presence and power in the difficulties of life. Often, the best response to the needs around us is to bring those things before God, trusting that what is needed most is the redemption, hope, and healing that only God can provide.

So, as we reflect upon the role of prayer in our lives, let’s bring caseworkers’ needs before the Lord. Let’s obey God’s command to call upon his name, asking him to provide for the caseworkers who are at work in our communities. Let’s pray for their protection, wisdom, and patience as they engage challenging circumstances. Let’s pray for peace, endurance, and encouragement as they navigate those difficulties.

And as we do, may we do so with open, receptive hearts, not only presenting these needs to God but also listening to ways that God may speak to us, leading us to engage alongside these caseworkers in ways that reflect Christ, all so that God may be known and glorified.

I’ll close with a final encouragement. If you’re like me, you can find many reasons not to pray. Distractions abound that pull us away from prayer. We can feel inadequate in our ability to pray. And, if we’re honest, there are times that prayer doesn’t feel all that desirable.

In those moments, I’ve found reassurance in the simple words of Richard Foster’s book, Prayer: “We will discover that by praying we learn to pray.”

For as much as thinking, talking, and reading about prayer can be helpful, the only way we truly grow in prayer, is to actually pray.

So, perhaps a place we can start is by praying a simple prayer: Lord, help me to love to pray. Please align my heart with yours, that I would desire to bring needs that reflect your heart, including those of caseworkers, to you. Amen.