Intercession
I remember where I was sitting at St. Patrick’s in Dwight and listening to the guest speaker’s talk. It must have been either an Advent or Lenten mission that St. Pat’s hosted. My mom invited me, complete with the offer to babysit my three small kiddos. I had no reason to say no. (I see what you did there, Mom.) The talk that evening was an incredibly inspiring, personal faith journey from darkness into light. This person told of the metanoia, or profound change in his life. His story moved me because of its tangible example of what is possible with God. Additionally, this story struck a chord in my life because it prompted me to pray for a person in my life. God made it apparent that I needed to pray for a metanoia in someone else’s life. This intercessory prayer lasted more than five years.
Interceding in prayer for others is what we do as Christians. We likely have a list of those in need of prayer in our hearts, our minds, our phones, or our planners at this moment. If you’re like me, my reliance on prayer ebbs and flows. I know it is good, but sometimes my worry and lack of trust overpowers the goodness and promise of prayer. Jesus told us to pray (John 14), without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), and even taught us how to pray (Matthew 6:9-13). So we should do it, right?
Sometimes I need to be reminded of the power of prayer, and yet, the realistic expectations I should have. Do we change God's mind when we pray? No, God is unchanging. He is always Goodness itself. God won’t change, and maybe the outcome won’t change to what we want. So why pray? Because God has given us the dignity of being causes. This statement by a Saint long ago really blows me away. Said another way, God invites us to participate in His good works through prayer. And as if being invited into God's works isn't empowering enough for us, another great reason to pray is because of what happens when we pray. Maybe a situation doesn’t change (that we can tangibly see), but when we go to the Father in prayer, we change. When we intentionally turn to God in prayer, our relationship with Him changes, and we likely do too.
When I was prompted to pray for a metanoia in someone’s life over a decade ago, I didn’t know that I would be praying that same request for more than five years. Many of you may have been praying for a particular intention for much longer than that. Being a Christian means learning to be okay with taking “no” for an answer. Will our prayers always be answered in the way that we desire them? No. But we can be consoled and encouraged by participating in God’s good works and hopefully cultivating our relationship with Him.
What prayer intentions do you have in your heart? Who are you praying for? The power of intercessory prayer is great. May you continue to be a cause of intercessory prayer for others.
“I strongly suspect that if we saw all the difference even the tiniest of our prayers to God make, and all the people those little prayers were destined to affect, and all the consequences of those effects down through the centuries, we would be so paralyzed with awe at the power of prayer that we would be unable to get up off our knees for the rest of our lives.” - Dr. Peter Kreeft