The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:5b-6)
My prayer is that this series of Reflections has been helpful for expanding your vision for your own prayer life. The Daily Office, as a form of prayer and a model for prayer, is instructive in training us in the expansiveness of what our prayer life can and should be. The aim with this is to teach us about the shape of a Christian prayer life, using the model of the Daily Office from our Book of Common Prayer.
I start with this point because in this post I’d like to reflect with you on what perhaps most quickly comes to our minds when we think about prayer, and that is intercession, and supplication. Many of us were trained (whether implicitly or explicitly) that the whole of a prayer life was about bringing your list of needs before God day by day, to bring those needs before Him and plead with Him to act.
Speaking personally, this was what I grew up with, and to be honest, I always found prayer really boring, especially if God already knew all these things that were going on. But then, as my prayer life started to expand, and things like praise and confession and Scripture meditation and all the others started to fill up my prayers, I found myself neglecting the crucial prayer work of intercession—I think out of some sense of superiority, like I’d graduated from that elementary school version of a prayer life. My pendulum swing in the opposite direction was borne out of a spiritual pride. But over time the Lord has brought correction, and a better balance, and the deeper conviction that the work of intercession is one of the most Christ-like and soul-forming prayer disciplines that we can do.
The Scriptures use the terms “intercession” and “supplication” in interchangeable ways—as prayers offered to heaven on behalf of people, circumstances, and needs here on earth. Some people will differentiate them by saying intercessions are prayers on behalf of others, while supplications are prayers for ourselves and our needs. And that is fine, but I’m going to be using these two words for the same effort of prayer: bringing a person or situation before the throne of God, and asking Him to intervene.
We ask the Lord for help with the things weighing on our hearts, our situations, our growth and protection from spiritual warfare. And we bring the needs of others before the Lord, pleading on their behalf for Heaven to intervene. In intercession, we are bringing our needs before the only One whom we know can address them. We are powerless on our own to effect change, but God Almighty can do it—so we pray unceasingly, asking Him to act. The missionary pastor and author Andrew Murray wrote this: “This sense of impotence in God’s servants is the very strength to the life of intercession….Intercession is the blessed link between our impotence and God’s omnipotence.” We come to God with the needs that only He can meet.
This is why intercession is such a powerful form of prayer, because it draws us deeper into God’s heart, and to pray more and more in accordance with His will. We pray and intercede not because God doesn’t know what is going on, but to kindle our hearts to stronger desire and direct our attention to the one who has power and love for His people.
And the Holy Spirit is within us as our helper in this task! Romans 8:27-26 says this: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
Do you catch what St. Paul is saying here? When we are praying in the Spirit, the Spirit within us prays according to the will of God! The Holy Spirit is busy at work conforming our hearts to the will of God. I’m accustomed to praying according to my own will, but the ministry of the Spirit within me is sanctifying me so that I know more and more of the heart of God as I pray. This is how the practice of intercession forms our souls deeply, as the Spirit within us lifts our souls up to God and prays with us and for us.
(As an aside, I will say that this is a point of dispute among various Christians, but I believe that when the Scriptures talk about “praying in the Spirit,” as above, it is a shorthand way of talking about the gift of speaking in tongues, the “groanings too deep for words.” This is a topic for another time…)
Additionally, we have Jesus the Son of God praying and interceding for us, at the right hand of the Father! Just a bit farther down in Romans 8, verse 34, Paul says that Jesus is at the right hand and is actively praying for us. Likewise, Hebrews 7:25 says that when we come to God through Him, Jesus “lives to make intercession for [us].” Jesus is sitting next to His Father, at the place of authority over the earth, and He is advocating for you, praying for you, working for your blessing. That is why we make our prayers in the name of Jesus, as we come to the Father through His authority, and His merits, since it’s only through Him we have access to the Father in the Spirit (Eph 2:18).
All that is to remind us that, when we intercede for others and for the world, we are exercising the ministry of Jesus. We are becoming like Him, more and more. Intercession is one of the most Christ-like things we can do on a day-to-day basis. It is a powerful and holy ministry to bring others before the throne of God and pray on their behalf. You are joining with Jesus in this work, in lovingly bearing someone before our heavenly Father, just as He does for you.
I want to encourage you to make intercession and supplication a daily part of your relationship with God in prayer. Have a list handy, or a prayer cycle you use to do intercessory prayer. If you want to utilize the tools of the Daily Office in the BCP, these prayers will lead us through general intercessions for our world, the church, the poor, and our leaders. Then there is space for open intercession, lifting up to the Father whatever and whomever is on your heart. I also recommend The Great Litany (p.91, BCP) as a comprehensive form of intercession for the world and all its needs—this can be a wonderful gift especially when life feels overwhelming and there is too much to pray for.
Let us be a people who know how to pray and intercede. When the circumstances of life are too much for you, you are not powerless—you have a direct line to the one who rules the universe! Get on your knees and plead to the One you know loves you and loves this world to act. Pray and believe in the prayer-hearing God who knows the desires of your heart, and who longs to bring you to Himself to abide in Him.
The Lord Jesus tells us, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Luke 11:9-10)
Amen.
For Your Reflection
- Has intercession been a default mode of prayer for you, or a struggle for you? How have you seen that change or shift over time?
- Reflect on the two persons of the Holy Trinity—the Son and the Spirit—joining with you in the ministry of intercession. How does that change this practice for you?
- I often say in our healing services, “There’s no ask too big for God, and there’s no ask too small for Him.” What do you find yourself hesitant to pray about?
- What, or who, have you been praying for for a long time? Who have you been tempted to give up on praying for, because you’re not getting an answer? Read and meditate on Luke 11:1-13 with this in mind.