As we move into a new decade, what is the state of your soul? Are you peaceful and joyous or weary and disillusioned? The work of intercession is hard work and it can become wearisome as we carry others’ burdens. But Jesus doesn’t want us to do the carrying. Instead He calls us, “Come to Me all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) The call is to bring the burdens and drop them at His feet. The promise is to receive rest in return. There we can agree with the Father that He hears our prayers and will bring about His good pleasure.
I was recently reminded of the gift that our Father gives us in “Sabbath Prayer,” a prayer of rest, as Richard Foster calls it in his book Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home. God longs for us to be refreshed by resting in Him. Three components of Sabbath Prayer that Foster suggests are solitude, silence, and recollection. Catherine Marshall alludes to these same elements in her chapter, “The Prayer in Secret,” from Adventures in Prayer.
In the Gospels we often see Jesus spending all night or rising early in the morning to pray alone with his Father. When Jesus was weary, He retreated to a quiet, solitary place to be refreshed in prayer. This resting prayer is not one of struggle, but simply a time to sit before our Father waiting on Him to come and bathe us with that balm of Gilead, to quiet our minds and souls to hear His still, small voice in preparation for the tasks He lays before us.
So come, be refreshed in this new year through regularly setting aside time to be alone and silent while sitting at the feet of Jesus. Time to remember who God is, your journey thus far, and the answers to prayers He’s given you. Then go forth in God’s strength to minister through intercession for those who are weary, hurting, feeling hopeless and sometimes unable to even pray.
Is something on your heart?
Six intercessors will pray for your request for 21 days.
