I repent of my ignorance of my calling, as a Christian mother, to intercede.
I have always prayed for my children as they go to bed, or school, or any time that called for it. The bedtime prayer was usually centered around thankfulness and sweet sleep (with the hope that I could sleep through the night too!). Skinned knees called for a prayer of comfort and healing. Parenting challenges called for a more intense prayer (and often fasting) time to lay hold of a strategy from God.
Recently, nighttime prayers have also changed. I still pray the normal prayers as I tuck them in, but later, when I am heading to bed myself, I feel drawn back in to intercede for them.
If 2020 has shown me anything, it is the need to intercede—especially for my own family.
I used to relegate intercession to those who were "called" to it or when a situation called for intercession—that intense prayer that persists to lay hold of answers.
As I said above, I'm engaged in prayer regularly throughout the day. I've often prayed intensely for short durations for answers for specific situations. I have seen miracles after miracles for strangers and family alike. But I have never counted myself an Intercessor with a capital "I."
I've known Intercessors. Several who were self-styled as such and a few who actually ARE intercessors. I have never been one. To be honest, it seemed like too much drama for me...all that "groaning of the spirit" and stuff.
Don't get me wrong—I wholeheartedly believe in it but thanked God I wasn't called to do it! I know that we, as Christians, are called to participate in Christ's intercessory work in Heaven, but still...I don't like my schedule disturbed by a fire that forces me to drop everything and intercede. Pray? Yes. Hear God's voice? Yes. Declare what I heard God say? Yes.
Intercede? Dear God, no. Please, not me.
There are a few experts in prayer out there, showing the way to intercede or writing books that tell us of the need. Tozer did. Murray did. E.M. Bounds did. Frangipane did. They call every Christian to participate in the ministry of Christ, which is intercession. They teach us to use many types of prayer to propel us to God's Throne to lay hold of God's heart for every situation and every question in every season.
I'm learning from these and others, piecing together a quilt of prayer life that, by the power of the Holy Spirit and drawn from intimacy with Christ, will eventually display Christ's image. Which is, after all, the whole point of everything.
The point of intercession is not really the answered prayer or even the time with God. Intercession is participation with Christ, in Christ, through Christ, so that Christ may be our all in all.
Grace calls us to participate in Christ's ministry of intercession.
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