Intercession
Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Philippians 2:4
This will be the last post in our little series on Prayer. We are now in a very special season of the year which is known by most of the Christians in the world as Lent. Starting with my next post I want to give some space to discussing the potential value of this season and also some of the misconceptions surrounding it. Today I would like to conclude our reflections on “Spicing Up Your Prayer Life” with a few thoughts on intercessory prayer.
My observation, which is based on thirty years of personal and pastoral experience, is that evangelicals in general struggle with prayer. When we let our guards down and get honest about it, it appears relatively few seem to have a consistent and satisfying prayer life. Exceptions abound but this seems to be the general rule. Many explanations are offered for this unfortunate and very well documented phenomenon but in my opinion two reasons stand out. The first is what I like to call “The Sanctification of Spontaneity”. Over the last century a popular consensus has emerged among many evangelicals that prayer must be entirely made up on the spot in order to be a legitimate expression of the heart. This trend owes something to theology but is also deeply rooted in American individualism. The net effect of this divorce from over two millennia of Christian faith and practice has been to leave countless numbers of us high and dry as we await the fickle winds of inspiration to move us Godward. The second detrimental tendency is also related to our individualism. Our attempts at prayer are too often centered on ourselves and our needs. It is good and necessary to converse with God concerning our own lives; this is absolutely essential. But in order for prayer to be sustained with fire and inspiration from on High, it is also absolutely essential that our vision rise beyond ourselves to embrace an ennobling and Christ-like concern for the well being of others, otherwise the path of devotion becomes a dead-end.
Intercession. What is it? Simply put, it is standing before God and pleading for the need of another. Intercession is the most Christ-like form of prayer of which human beings are capable. Here are a few thoughts on how to do it.
Think globally. I believe it was Spurgeon who said a preacher ought to prepare every sermon with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. There is great wisdom in this admonition. I will never forget the experience of being in a church service just after a devastating Tsunami hit Indonesia in 2004. Public prayers were offered for the worship service and the needs of the people but not a word was said on behalf of the multitudes who had just suffered one of the most devastating human catastrophes in history. The effect was jarring. I wondered what impression this might have made on any reasonably informed visitor that day. For all appearances it seemed that this congregation either did not care or was completely unaware of the world outside their own four walls. Hardly a reflection of God’s heart for the world! And yet, such disconnect is common in our public and private prayers. Our praying is often tragically self-centered. We would make a quantum leap in our prayers and our perspective if Spurgeon’s advice about the Bible and the newspaper were to become a model for our public and private prayer. Look at the news, let it break your heart as it does God’s, and let the brokenness move you to prayer. Such praying will make you a more tender and compassionate church or individual. In short, it will make you more like Jesus.
Make Lists. The biggest lie in America is not “The check is in the mail”, it is “I’ll pray for you”. I am not suggesting that we lie in this way with any attempt to deceive, we have the best of intentions, it’s just that we honestly forget. This should come as no surprise. Our minds are so full of dates and data it’s a wonder we remember anything. I have two suggestions for my chronically forgetful fellow Christians. First, don’t put off until tomorrow any good you can do today. We had a rule at the last church I served, “The time to pray is now, and the place to pray is here”. This little slogan helped us change our habits from making promises to making prayers. To give an example, if someone asks you to pray for an upcoming medical test or job interview, don’t just make a promise to pray – do it right then and there. It was a real blessing to see little clusters of two or more all around the church joining hands and interceding in real-time.
The second suggestion is to make lists. Some prayer needs are ongoing and call for repetition before the throne of grace. Also, when your heart begins to warm to intercession you will be amazed how fast – and how large – your prayer list can grow. What do you do when the number of needs you are praying for gets larger that you feel you can manage in the time you have to pray? Here are a few quick thoughts:
Divide and Conquer. At the church I currently serve, we have the names of the congregation divided into days of the week. My wife and I pray together in the morning and we devote a day of the week to pray especially for a specific child. You get the idea. Making a list is easy to do and it can make prayer more manageable.
Litanies and Summaries. Examine the liturgies of the historic church (including Protestant liturgies) and you will find that these churches never neglected to pray both globally and locally. Historic liturgies always include weekly prayer for things like corporate confession of our sins, the needs of the church worldwide, the government of our nation, troubled nations of the world, the poor, the sick, the suffering, the persecuted, the spread of the gospel and so on. These are really important things to pray about, but things we may often forget unless we make lists.
One of the ways prayer lists are managed in the liturgical church is called a litany, a word which basically means a list. Sometimes litanies are long. One of the ways a lengthy litany is made doable in public worship is simply to call for a simple but heart-felt congregational response. For example, the prayer leader may call out to God for the nation, the war, the sick, the dying, the persecuted church, etc. After each prayer request the people simply respond “Lord, hear our prayer”, or “Christ, have mercy”. Doing a litany may not be the style at your church but it is one of the more creative ways Christians have used to make it possible to pray for a lot of needs in a little time.
Summary Petitions. In my own daily prayer routine there is a fairly large number of people I pray for. I do not always have time to pause and articulate a prayer for each person. When this is the case, I slowly and prayerfully bring all the names before God and close with a summary petition that goes like this:
Save, O Lord, and have mercy on these and all yourservants,[pause]
Deliver them from every tribulation, wrath and need [pause]
From every sickness of soul and body,[pause]
Forgive every transgression, voluntary and involuntary, [pause]
And do whatever is profitable for their souls. Amen.
Even though this is a “summary” petition as you can see, these are very meaningful and substantial – even beautiful things to pray for others. I know I would love to have someone praying these things for me, even if I am at the end of a long list!
In closing I will simply share a personal observation. There are many days I struggle to pray and sometimes I am embarrassed by what a hard time I have concentrating, staying focused and putting my heart into it. I keep trying and I know that God sees my heart and rewards the effort. But even on days like this, the one consistent exception is intercession. Intercession almost always catches fire. In fact I could say that as a general rule I experience more power in prayer during intercession that at any other point. I think this is because the act of intercession, even when it is coming from a wretch like me, is something very near to the heart of God.
