Intercessory Prayer

Big word. Simply put, it means that one person is praying to God for another person. In the tribe that I was raised in it can have a variety of meanings. The problem is that my tribe has never really put a lot of actual stock in the disciplines (unless you count arguing as a spiritual discipline, then we are spiritual titans). We talk a lot about prayer, we read and write a lot about prayer, we even make a pretty good show of it when we are all together to pray, but when you really pin someone down (me included) it becomes evident that we would rather do all the above than actually pray.
The other issue is that when we say to someone, "I am praying for you." what we are actually saying is that we are "thinking" about them. Or, we wish we had the discipline to sit down, carve out the silent and solitude it actually takes to delve deeply in prayer. Or it could mean we hit it a glancing blow before we eat. Not often do we mean that we are going to go to our knees, clench our mind around the fact that someone dear to us needs someone to stand in God's presence and plead their case. This is a bold move and runs its own set of risks for the prayer as well as the prayee.

The other issue is the passage we quote "The prayers of the righteous man availeth much" See, I can't even quote it without using King James English. The question that came to my mind several years ago when I started the spiritual journey "What if the guy praying is not actually righteous?" Hmmm. Could the prayer do more harm than good? Does the indictment of the unrighteous then fall on the one who is hurting? Besides, we have a sort of cultural bent that says if enough of us pray we can somehow influence God and his handling of the situation. If I can get enough folks (odds say some of them have to be righteous, right?) praying, then God pretty much has to bend towards public opinion, right? So we develop these prayer campaigns on FB, Email, church bulletins, etc. etc. and somewhere in our hearts feel that the simple quantity will get the job done. Quantity and some quality have to have the desired effect, right?

Here's the problem. I've seen it go both ways. I have lost a mother who had thousands of people praying for her. I've had a daughter suffer and survive the big C, three times. I have grandbabies that could be pointed to as results of prayers, and I have seen others who have nothing to show for the hours spent on knees.

So here is my big conclusion. Prayer probably does not change the heart of God, it changes the heart of the one praying. My prime proof text is the prayer in the garden, a son, a request, a denial. That prayer changed the heart of our savior, not the heart of the One who held the plan. It changes us in the most fundamental ways. I believe it is God's way of shifting our views and provides the proper forum for introspection.

All of this has changed my approach to "praying for others" First and foremost, I keep my list very short. Usually I only pray for one or two people at a time, but those prayers are linked to deep study and meditation. And it is every day for whatever time is needed. I try not to be flip about telling someone that I am spending time in prayer for them. If they seem to have a battalion of prayer helpers they do not need my help. Which leads me to the second shift in my thinking.

I know better than anyone else the level of my faith. It is meager at best. There is a reason that I refer to myself as a functional skeptic, with the higher emphasis on skeptic, not functional. The prayers of the skeptic are hard to articulate and I wonder how God receives them. The start of my prayers are always an appeal to God to not hold my hardheadedness against the one for whom I am praying, they have enough problems. It seems to me that a lot of people walk around with these enormous suitcases full of faith. They have an abundance. I seem to have mine in a flimsy WalMart bag. Tiny flecks of faith that were hard earned. In the past I was one of those who trailed a big bag of faith behind me, not realizing that it could be yanked from my hands and rifled through and confiscated  like a TSA agent in the airport. This is important because faith is the fuel of prayer.

So I am careful in my prayers for someone. Some might say miserly, but there is only a few flecks of faith, and I am the 4 year old child of God who constantly asks, "Why?" The list is short these days, with only a name or so on it. What little faith is being expended is expended for this one or two. I agonize over the results of these prayers.

Godspeed to the faithful, to the ones who pray, for the ones who need prayers, for the one who answers prayers.
Don