Intercession is a priority at my church. We have prayer teams at various stations after Communion to pray for personal needs, a healing ministry of soaking prayer that reaches out to the community, a telephone prayer chain for emergencies among the congregation, and individual intercessors who pray at home or in the sanctuary on a regular basis.
Intercession has long been a calling on my heart personally as well.
Many years ago, after reading Catherine Marshall’s “The Helper,” prayer gradually became a way to focus God’s power over my concerns and desires for others. Always the needs are great; the list is long.
Often in my morning quiet time with the Lord, cozy in my faded red chair, I am so overwhelmed with prayer requests that I can’t help but start right in, giving my catalog to God, eager to tell Him what I think He should do about these troubling situations. I completely bypass the other components of a worthy time of contemplation (such as praise, thanksgiving, and confession) and start with my requests. Occasionally though, the Holy Spirit has a different agenda for my prayer time.
Our cat Puffer is not usually a snuggler. But one particular morning he jumped in my lap and sprawled over my prayer journal and Bible and immobilized me. Since it is so rare that he graces me with a little cuddling, I didn’t want to move. He immediately went right to sleep and his mere 14 pounds of gray and white fur couldn’t be budged. I couldn’t even consult my prayer list because he was lying on it, and I just knew that God was waiting eagerly for my inventory of things He needed to attend to!
But as Puffer had me pinned down this morning with his warmth and stillness, I was unexpectedly flooded with tears. A message often repeated came to me, “You are a human being, not a human doing. Be still and know Me. I already know the prayers on your heart.”
As I sat quietly and let the Holy Spirit fill me, I felt a great peace in knowing God could do a much better job of handling all these urgent prayer requests than I could. Once I let the Holy Spirit take charge of my “grocery list,” I felt a very special moment of the nearness of God’s presence, a time when I could tell Him how much I love Him, and then ask Him to take the prayers of my heart up to His throne.
Relaxing in Him, I was given new ways to pray for these needs and even new insights into some answers. The urgency of my appeal was quieted by God’s gentle company. Nothing was as important as that exclusive time with Him.
He says to us in our busiest times, “Be still and know that I am God,” Psalm 46:10.
Is something on your heart?
Six intercessors will pray for your request for 21 days.
