Intercession for the Sick

            Whenever a group gathers to pray together, inevitably some prayer requests will be for those who are ill.  I guess that should not surprise us with them great emphasis in our society on having a healthy lifestyle. 

            Although we have wonderful medical care available in the western world, there is a limit to what the best-trained practitioners or most sophisticated medical equipment can provide until a clear diagnosis of the problem unfolds.  Awaiting an accurate diagnosis is often one of the most stressful aspects of being ill.  Our imaginations seem to run wild and we fear the worst until we are able to discover what is not working as it ought in our bodies.  The only one who really knows all about our bodies is the Maker of them and thus it does seem logical to approach him about our worries while we wait for those who have been taught the necessary medical skills to figure it out.   Thus, we bring the problem to him in prayer. 

            When we receive the diagnosis, we then need to discover the most appropriate treatment for the illness.  Even here, many possible alternatives play a role.  What is currently available is key.  Also, what treatments or medications our bodies can tolerate determine what will be done given the imbalance that can arise in the whole body chemistry following the introduction of new elements to our systems.  Again, divine wisdom applied to the situation will be of great benefit to the health care professionals, so it is logical to make this also a matter of prayer.

            Perhaps behind these problems associated with being ill is also the base fear.  Sometimes disease can lead to death and we may be forced to confront our mortality.  This forces us to consider our views about eternity.  For this reason we bring our fears to the one who has the final word on life and death. When our fears drive us to prayer, we can face reality.

            My list of intensive care prayer requests includes those for whom I pray because of illness.  One is a young mother who herself has been ill and who recently lost her husband to illness. As well as praying for her healing, I need to pray for her in her grief and for the challenge she faces trying to raise her two sons on her own, uncertain of her own future.    

Another person in this group is not ill herself, but a couple of months ago a chronic disease claimed the life of her son in his forties after many years of suffering.  She is currently facing the possibility of having to place her husband in a care facility because of his dementia.  While I pray for her husband, I also pray for grace and strength for her to be able to deal with the challenges that have come her way. 

A third friend has been battling many different forms of cancer for several years and this enemy that she has had to contend with took her only sister just last year.  She wonders how long she will be able to prevail in the fight and is so grateful for the prayers of support for her in her battle with this dreaded disease. 

            When we take seriously the opportunity to intercede for those who are ill, we engage in a complex series of issues that can be highly charged emotionally.  Where we know what specifically to pray for we can do so, but sometimes all we can do is place the suffering person in the hands of a God who loves them more than they can imagine and that is enough. 

Your thoughts? 

Mutual Intercession

          We met at the Write-to-Publish Conference at Wheaton College, just outside Chicago.  I think it was my second time attending this writers’ conference so I had overcome some of my fear at going alone to such an event.  After hastily dropping my luggage in my assigned dorm room, I hurried over to the auditorium for the initial session, arriving just as the program was beginning.  I was just nicely settled into a plush chair, three seats from the aisle near the back of the auditorium, when I spotted the newcomer.  Her brow furrowed in bewilderment made me suspect this was her first time at the conference.  Remembering how intimidated I felt a year earlier, I beckoned to her to join me, pointing to the empty seat on my right.  As she took her place, I leaned over and whispered, “Welcome.” 

            I had no idea this was the beginning of a mutual intercession destined to support each of us as we faced stormy waters in our personal lives over the next fifteen years.  Her trials included a broken marriage and the challenges of raising her three children on her own.  Among mine were the broken body and bruised spirit of my son, paralyzed by a freak car accident. 

            After that first session of the conference, we grabbed coffees and sat down on the steps of the auditorium, enjoying the warmth of the June evening as we shared a little about our backgrounds and writing experiences.  As it turned out, we did not choose any of the same electives to attend during the conference.  However, we kept running into each other in the general sessions, or at meals or walking across the campus.   It seemed we just kept showing up in the same places. 

            Just after the Awards banquet, near the end of the conference, my new friend approached me and said, “I am an intercessor.” 

            “Great!”  I replied.  “I am an intercessor too.”  She continued,  “I feel God is calling me to intercede for you. “ How strange and yet how encouraging, I thought to myself.  We discovered that we were both part of the same international intercessors group. We exchanged e-mail addresses, so that I could share my prayer concerns with her, and I decided to add her to my prayer list as well, and left promising to pray for her and her family. 

            Our correspondence back and forth over the years is scarce.  About the only time, we contact each other, except at Christmas when we share with one another our prayer concerns.  I feel like her children are precious to me, even thought I have not seen them since they came to pick her up with their father at the end of that first conference.  Yet, I have prayed daily for them through the years. I feel I have had the opportunity to invest in their lives in this way.  My friend and I both published articles in the magazine put out by our intercessors group.  The bonds that unite us exert a strong vertical pull. 

            How grateful I am she took the risk to tell me about the nudge she felt, when the Spirit called her to support me in prayer.  We are truly soul sisters.  

Intercession for the Boss

               When we are working for a boss that we really enjoy working with, it is a joy to be able to include their name in our lists for intercession.  However, when the relationship is not one where we feel a sense of camaraderie and pleasure in working for the same ends, it is more difficult. 

                This relationship is not like a friendship where there can be give and take and if we drift apart, the consequences need not be that serious.  Rather, this relationship can shape our everyday lives. 

                If we have a boss with whom, although we may not have a  personal friendship, we are nevertheless able to enjoy a relationship of mutual respect and perhaps even encouragement, to pray for them does not require a great deal of effort on our part.

                However, it is not always that way.  We may work with a boss, for whom we feel respect or even admiration at times, but at other times, we are confused and not at all sure, what their modus operandi is.  Then it may not be quite so easy to pray for them. Faithfulness if prayer for them requires that we remember them on both the good days and the bad.

                At the far end of the spectrum is the boss, who causes us to pray for ourselves every day, so we can respond in a respectful manner to their interactions with us.  To pray for such a boss may be harder, as we would rather curse them than bless them.  We may need to precede our prayers for them with prayers for our own attitudes, so that we do not respond by lashing out at them for the way that we feel they are treating us. 

                As with all challenging  relationships, praying for a supervisor with whom we have a difficult relationships, demands that we ask for a spirit of discernment to try to understand ways that we may be creating tensions in the relationship.  When we are convinced that our own attitude is not the catalyst, we then can pray for the needs of our superior, aware that they may be struggling with issues that are completely outside our awareness. 

                Each morning, as I pray for those to whom I am accountable in my various responsibilities, I am grateful to say that at this time, I am able to offer gratitude for the respectful manner in which I am usually treated.  It has not always been that way and it may not always be so, but for the moment, I can be grateful that this is my situation.  

Intercession for Denominational Leaders

          The lists that I use in my daily intercession include the names of the global leaders of my denomination.  For many years, these were often just names to me and I did not personally know the people who occupied these positions.  However, in the later years of our ministry in the denomination, these people were also those we had served with during the course of our ministry or they were personal friends, whom we had opportunities to spend time with socially as we met with other leaders from various parts of the world in conferences. 

            I believe it is important to pray for those who are in denominational leadership.  They often have difficult decisions to make that can determine the destiny of people whose lives are impacted by those decisions.  What a huge responsibility that is.  Also, there is no guarantee that they will make the right decisions, even though the intention of their hearts may be pure and they are seeking divine wisdom for the choices they make.  They are still human and can make mistakes.  That is why they need our support rather than our criticism.  Praying for them helps us to keep a balanced perspective.  We do not expect them to be infallible, but we know that even if they err, God is still sovereign and can bring good out of the resulting situation.  It may even turn out to be more beneficial for the individuals concerned than if another decision had been made. 

            Another reason that we need to pray for our spiritual leaders is that they become the targets of spiritual warfare.   They clearly fulfill a mandate geared toward the building of God’s kingdom.  We do not talk a lot about spiritual warfare these days.  I will post a blog about it a little later, because it is also part of my daily intercession. At this time, I am bringing it up as another reason to remember in prayer those who occupy positions of authority in our ecclesiastical structures. 

            Personally, I choose to pray daily for the top three or four people who are responsible globally for our denomination.   I remember each one by name and pray for them in a daily rotation.  In addition, I pray for the national leadership of our denomination, and well as for regional and local leaders.  Having served in denominational leadership myself, I know how grateful I felt for the prayer support we received, so I am glad to do my part to encourage those who bear the burden of leadership today. 

Intercession – Questions without Answers

               Carol* and I have been friends since we were in our teens and we are both approaching retirement age now.  Her name has been on my prayer lists many times throughout the years.  At times, she reminds me of Job in the Old Testament, in that it seems that she has had so many disappointments and discouragements to deal with and I do not know why it should be that way.   

                Carol’s parents divorced after she was an adult and already married.  What a disappointment that was for her!   Her parents had been in ministry and Carol was supportive of the work they did.  The family breakup shattered all that she had known and taken for granted, as she was growing up.  She had never imagined her parents deciding to go their separate ways. 

                Through the years, Carol has also had to contend with significant health problems.  At times, the challenges she has faced have been life threatening.  At other occasions, she has faced mobility issues of various kinds that hampered her ability to do the work she loves, serving others in the medical profession. 

                Another challenge that came Carol’s way was the loss of employment by her husband.  This was not just an interim job loss.  It continued for quite some time and resulted in him having to choose a job in a sector that for him was quite uncomfortable, but it seemed to be the only possibility on the horizon. 

                Carol faced the usual challenges of parenting her children, sharing the joys and sorrows that are common to most of us.  However, when her youngest son was in university, he developed a disease that presented constant unknowns to the medical community.  One of the complications of this disease was kidney failure and the solution was for Carol to donate one of her kidneys to her son.  Of course, she did this without hesitation, as any Mother would who can do something to save the life of her child.  Even after the transplant, her son continues to face constant health issues and the family never know from day to day how the illness is next going to manifest itself. It requires a day-by-day faith to carry on with courage.

                Currently both Carol and her husband are again facing health issues.  This is the reason that she is on my intensive care prayer list today.  It is difficult to understand why Carol has had to contend with so many challenges in life.  It seems unfair, yet I know that Carol is a woman of great faith.  She keeps on going, even though she does not know what the next day might hold.  She has refused to be held back by fear of the unknown or by the “what ifs” of life.  I feel honoured to have friends like Carol, and it is my joy to be able to accompany her on a difficult journey by my prayers. 

*I have changed Carol’s name but not her story.

INTERCESSION FOR HOPELESS SITUATIONS

Some people are on my intercession list that I know very little about other than their names.  Often they are folks who someone I know has asked me to pray for, but has only given me the briefest of outlines of their needs.  One of these people is a woman whom a colleague at my work asked me to pray for a few months ago.  The woman was to undergo major surgery. My co-worker told me how kind this woman had been to her family and how for many years she has lived with a great deal of pain.  The hope was that the operation would help to reduce some of her pain, although it would not likely solve the problem completely.  The patient’s name was added to my list, along with that of her husband who has also been a huge support to my friend’s family.  I continue to pray for her long after the surgery is over, because I know it takes a long time for the body to heal completely.  When I sense a nudging from the Spirit that it is time to leave her in God’s hands so that He can provide someone else to pray for her, if necessary, I remove her name from my list. 

            Friends and acquaintances sometimes request prayers for family members.  Two close friends have recently asked for my intercession for their adult children who are experiencing problems in their marriages.  Domestic problems like these tear at the hearts of parents who can do little but stand by and pray for the intimate relationships of their children. 

            One of the couples faced a significant rupture in their relationship the day that their children saw their father acting inappropriately with a woman who was not their mother in a public place.  They came home to their mother crying their eyes out.  The wife felt she had no choice but to request that her husband cool his heels elsewhere, until they had a chance to think over their situation.  It is so sad to see the pain generated for the whole family in these kinds of situations. Only the grace of God can turn the situation around for the good of anyone. 

            The other couple is dealing with the addiction of one of the members of the couple that is causing economic hardship for the whole family.  The children are younger and may not be aware of the reason for the problems in their household.  They only feel the tension between their parents.  My prayer is for both the children of this couple and the parents.  Again, the situation seems impossible unless the parent with the addiction is willing to seek help. Yet, with all my heart, I continue to believe even such a gloomy situation can be changed if the couple will in some way move to invite the Lord to be involved in their relationship. 

            In these kinds of situations, we often believe we know how we should pray.  In some cases, our assumptions may be accurate.  Again, however, I remember we really know only a little of the whole situation and God alone knows it all.  He loves each of the members of these young families even more than the parents who have asked me to pray, love them.  Thus we can tell Him how we see the situation, and then ask Him in His wisdom and mercy to communicate with them in a way they will understand, We ask that His Spirit work out the murky situation for the good of all concerned.  To pray that way seems an idealistic and impossible denial of reality. Yet, I have seen God do remarkable things in the lives of people in these kinds of situations.  As the Apostle Paul says, “He does more than we can ask or even imagine.”  The word hopeless is not part of his vocabulary.    

100huntley.com - Eleanor Shepherd --"More Questions Than Answers" 1/2

100huntley.com - Eleanor Shepherd --"More Questions Than Answers" 1/2