I Pray, You Suffer May 3, 2015

Vital Intercession 

¹⁸ And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.  Ephesians 6:18

As we go on in intercession we may find that our obedience to God is going to cost other people more than we thought. The danger then is to begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting to a totally different sphere in answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from identification with God’s interest in others into sympathy with them, the vital connection with God has gone; we have put our sympathy, our consideration for them, in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.

It is impossible to intercede vitally unless we are perfectly sure of God, and the greatest dissipater of our relationship to God is personal sympathy and personal prejudice. Identification is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with God, it is by sympathy, not by sin.

It is not likely that sin will interfere with our relationship to God, but sympathy will, sympathy with ourselves or with others which makes us say—“I will not allow that thing to happen.” Instantly we are out of vital connection with God. Intercession leaves you neither time nor inclination to pray for your own “sad sweet self.” The thought of yourself is not kept out, because it is not there to keep out; you are completely and entirely identified with God’s interests in other lives.

Discernment is God’s call to intercession, never to fault finding.

Chambers, Oswald (2011-05-01). My Utmost for His Highest, Classic Edition (pp. 89-90). Discovery House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Just a couple of days ago, I cautioned about allowing the words of another to replace the guidance and student of the Bible.  Yet once again I find myself pondering many lines of Chambers, but only one line of scripture.  But prayer continues to be an area of wonderment and head-scratching for me, so I give my self permission to allow Chambers to guide my thinking, knowing his writings are based on scripture and meditation.

I have reread Chambers' first line several time and am left with a sense of awe and concern.  If I pray for the will of God in a person's life, I may well be praying for a blessing, an illness, a windfall, a death.  I cannot know what God's ultimate plan for another is for as we are told in Isaiah, "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord."  Therefore, I cannot know what God needs to happen in a person's life.