Ezekiel 22:30 “And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.” Today's episode talks about the importance of intercessory prayer. I also talk about the difference between general intercession and prophetic intercession. There are several excellent examples of prophetic intercession. God is calling us to stand in the breach, will we answer that call? Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Do Our Prayers Even Matter?
Ezekiel 22:30 “And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.”
We spent last night in class talking about prophetic intercession. I have discussed intercessory prayer before on various episodes as I think it is essential. Here, we have the Lord telling us the same thing. Intercessory prayer is when you pray on behalf of someone else. For instance my family was interceding for my dad last week as he was in the hospital for a bit. Whenever anyone asks you to pray for someone, you are interceding on their behalf. Catholics do this same thing when we ask the Saints to pray for us. We are not asking them for a miracle. We ask them to intercede for us just as we would our family and friends.
General intercession is when someone asks you to pray for someone, and you do. The way they described it in class is that we are interceding from earth to heaven. Someone on earth asks us to pray for them or a loved one, and we send our prayers to heaven for them. Last night, we learned about prophetic intercession, which sounds fancy, and yet I bet we have all experienced it to some degree at one time or another. Prophetic intercession is praying from heaven to earth. Have you ever felt like you were supposed to pray for someone out of the blue? That would be prophetic intercession. God will sometimes put on our hearts something or someone to pray for, and then we must follow through with that prayer.
Sometimes, we will find out later why we were asked to pray. For instance, God urged my teacher to pray the rosary for his wife’s cousin. It was precisely 7 PM when he felt this placed on his heart. He started the rosary right away. The next day, his wife called him at work to let him know her cousin had died. She was in an accident at 7 the night before. When we get these feelings to pray, it is essential to obey. Our teacher told us about another time when he heard a fellow deacon was sick. He had not met this man before because he was away when the man came to talk to his diaconate class. He happened to be by his house and thought he would stop by, meet, and pray with him. On the way to the man’s house, he felt called to do the divine mercy chaplet. He completed the chaplet just as he arrived at the man’s house. He went and knocked on the door and found out the man had just passed away one minute before he knocked.
This is what is stated in St. Faustina’s Diary about saying the Divine Mercy Chaplet for someone who is dying: “At the hour of their death, I defend as My own glory every soul that will say this chaplet; or when others say it for a dying person, the pardon is the same. When this chaplet is said by the bedside of a dying person, God’s anger is placated, unfathomable mercy envelops the soul, and the very depths of My tender mercy are moved for the sake of the sorrowful Passion of My Son. (811) My teacher had no idea this man was close to death. He just knew he was sick. God knew, though, and God used my teacher to pray this important prayer. God may be using you too!
Another time, God urged my teacher to do a Jericho walk around the flag pole. This is when you walk around the flag seven times, silently praying, and after the seventh time, you pray and praise the Lord out loud. The burdens of the nation were put on his heart, and this is how the Lord wanted Him to pray for them. Our teacher had so many examples; I believe that is because He always tries to listen to the Lord and then act when he hears something.
I was so excited to share this with you this morning because it reinforces that we are not helpless. This world is crazy right now, and with the news as it is, we can often get overwhelmed by all that is happening. We often feel helpless as it seems like the problems are more significant than any one person, which is true. They are more significant than any one person. They are not bigger than God, though. Knowing that our prayers can make a difference is important.
Another excellent example of the importance of our prayers is what I talked about in the witness Wednesday last week. There was a man who saw a woman being put in an ambulance and knew he couldn’t really help her as he was not a doctor. So, as he ran by her house, he said one hail Mary for her recovery. Jesus appeared to this woman in the hospital and told her that she was dying and that this man’s prayer saved her. He held up his palm, and the face of the man running by was on Jesus’ hand. He said one Hail Mary prayer. One Hail Mary that only takes a few seconds to say.
We often say, “All I can do is pray,” as if we are out of options. Prayer is the best and most powerful thing we can do. Prophetic intercession is even more powerful because we are listening to what God wants us to do and then doing it. If you ever feel God is putting a person or a cause on your heart, take a minute and ask the Lord how He would like you to pray for that person—the how could make all the difference. Saint Faustina Kowalska was a nun in Poland. She received a vision that an angel was sent by God to chastise a certain city. She immediately began to pray for mercy, but no matter how much she prayed for mercy, she could not save the city. Then, she saw the Holy Trinity and felt the power of Jesus’ grace within her. At the same time, she found herself praying words that she heard internally, “Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world; for the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us.” (Saint Faustina’s Diary, 475) As she continued saying this inspired prayer, the angel became helpless and could not carry out the deserved punishment (see 474)
This example from St. Faustina is why this verse is so important. The verse above says, “And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.” Is God calling you to stand in the breach? Is He calling you to help repair the wall? Instead of worrying about all that is going on in the world, we can pray about all that is going on. We often think our prayers aren’t doing much. We are just one person. St. Faustina is just one person, yet her prayers prevented the angel from chastising a city. If the prayers from one person are that powerful, imagine how powerful the prayers of millions of people would be. Pray, Pray, Pray. Pray for our loved ones and friends. Pray for all nations, church leaders, and leaders everywhere. If you feel the prompting to pray for someone out of the blue, take a minute and press in. Ask the Lord how He wants you to pray for that person. The prayer they taught us last night in class is: “God let me think like you think and feel what you feel.” If you can feel what He feels and think what He thinks, your prayers will be better because you will understand what you are praying for more.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each and every person listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to stand in that breach. Please let us help you. Use us, Lord. Show us how to listen to your voice. Show us how to obey when you call us. Give us the grace and the strength we need to follow your call. Open our ears to hear your call and open our hearts to interceding for others. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I have updated my website, walkboldlywithjesus.com, with the information about my new upcoming coaching program. I am very excited to offer this group coaching opportunity as I know one-on-one coaching is not for everyone. Yet we can all use some help along our spiritual journey. Also, I am excited to see friendships develop as they have in my mentoring group. There is something so special about having others alongside you on your faith journey. I really feel the small group discussions are going to be very fruitful. Time talking with other Christian women is always a great time. The coaching sessions will be Tuesday nights on Zoom at 8 PM EST.
I look forward to meeting you all here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!