I glanced at the clock uneasily. It was 11:00 a.m. I picked up the receiver and dialed the number by memory.
“Karen, I have this feeling that won’t leave me. I can’t concentrate on anything. Ron left early this morning to inventory an auto parts store. He has a five-hour drive to Blythe. I keep feeling he’s going to have an accident. Would you pray with me for his protection?”
Karen wasn’t startled by my unusual request. We’d been prayer phone partners for two years. Together we prayed for Ron’s safety.
Ordinarily, I didn’t worry about him traveling hundreds of miles daily, but that morning I kept feeling an urgency to pray.
At about 1:00 p.m. the phone rang. It was Ron. “I’m in Blythe,” he said.
I felt apprehensive because it wasn’t like him to call at midday.
“I had an accident in Indio. I’m okay, and the car is drivable,” he assured me. “I was turning into a gas station when a young man driving a truck ran a yield sign. He was coming from so far back and moving so fast I didn’t see him. He left 45 feet of skid marks before he smashed into the right rear fender of the car. The gas station owner said he’s been cited more than once for reckless driving,” Ron sighed. “I had a strange uneasiness before I left this morning.”
“So did I. Karen and I prayed for your safety.”
“I’m fine,” he reassured me again. “Only the car was damaged. It can be repaired.”
The police officer estimated that the speed of the pickup truck passing the yield sign was 65 to 70 miles an hour before the driver braked and smashed into Ron’s car. The impact was so hard that the truck’s engine was knocked loose and fell sideways. Yet Ron wasn’t injured, and he could drive his car.
We were greatly relieved that he had been protected. Surely God’s miraculous intervention prevented a fatal accident.
In unusual situations, the Spirit of God may impress upon our minds exactly what we need to pray about and even at a specific time. When Karen and I prayed, it had to be very close to the time of the accident. The Holy Spirit not only prompted me to pray, but Ron had been impressed to pray for his own safety that morning before the accident.
God knows our needs before we ask (Matt. 6:8). He knew Ron would be safe, so why did the Spirit burden our hearts and impress me to pray with Karen? The Spirit moved us to pray so we could see God’s provision and protection and give Him glory.
“Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2 NIV). Share each other’s concerns through prayer, responding to the Spirit’s urgings.
Spurgeon said, “He can lay certain desires so pressingly upon our hearts that we can never rest till they are fulfilled.” (Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Holy Spirit's Intercession,” No. 1532, April 11th, 1880, Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.)
The Holy Spirit may place a burden on our heart to intercede for someone facing a critical need. We may not know why the Spirit is urging us to pray for that person, but we can’t shake the impression that we must pray.
At first, we may not realize that the Spirit is moving us to intercede and so we ignore it and try to put it out of our mind. If only we could realize that the greatest part of our prayer-life is learning to hear the Spirit’s voice and responding to the needs He puts on our hearts for prayer.
When the Spirit prompts us to pray for someone we need to ask Him what we should pray. If He doesn’t reveal that to us, we have the assurance that the Spirit knows the need and is also interceding.
We can lift that person up to God even though we don’t know his or her need. Sometimes this burden to pray is a light impression; other times it’s heavy.
As we go about our daily work, the indwelling Spirit keeps urging us to pray. This urgency becomes increasingly stronger until it’s like an undercurrent just below the surface of our thinking pulling us along, compelling us to pray. This pressure keeps surfacing again and again within our mind so that we feel the need crying in our heart all day and night long. This urgency to intercede can become so consuming it crowds out all other thoughts and concerns and even wakens us in the night.
More than thirty years ago, I had this heavy feeling that someone was going to pass away. For three days I felt that strong impression. I passed the name of every loved one I could think of through my mind, praying for them and the feared unknown. Perhaps I could protect them by my prayers. It was a useless guessing game. My unleashed imagination only fed my fears and increased my anxiety.
My favorite aunt never once entered my thoughts. On that third day, I received a phone call that she had committed suicide. I was heartbroken, but it wasn’t until years later that I realized that the Holy Spirit had prepared me for this loss and moved me to intercede.
The urgency to intercede may also be contrary to the facts as we know them. One time a woman in our church entered the hospital for routine tests. As I prayed for her I kept feeling this persistent apprehension and a strong urgency to intercede. But I kept shoving it out of my mind because it didn’t make sense. She had a minor problem. Suddenly, she turned seriously ill and in a few short hours she was gone.
The Spirit of God moves us to intercede in a crisis not only to prepare our heart for a tragic outcome, but also to move us to pray for those who experience such a loss. Tragedy may not be diverted because of prayer, but in some way our prayers were critical to supporting others in times of crisis.
The Apostle Paul had many such experiences of the Holy Spirit speaking to him and preparing him. “I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me” (Acts 20:23 NIV).
As it says in The Message, "But there is another urgency before me now. I feel compelled to go to Jerusalem. I'm completely in the dark about what will happen when I get there. I do know that it won't be any picnic, for the Holy Spirit has let me know repeatedly and clearly that there are hard times and imprisonment ahead. But that matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God” (Acts 20:23-24 MSG).
Paul did not die away of self-pity as he prayed and realized the Holy Spirit was preparing him for suffering. What meant the most to him was serving God in his affliction. “But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.” (Acts 20: 24 NIV).
God’s Amazing Provisions
How the Holy Spirit speaks to us as we pray is a continual amazement to me. As I was writing this, I was praying and thinking about how I needed an illustration about the Spirit burdening us to pray when there is a critical need. I remembered Ron’s accident and that I had written about it, but that was 27 years ago.
Could I possibly have a copy of an unpublished article I had written about it? We had moved twice since then and I’d thrown away file drawers full of papers. But I felt strongly impressed to see if I could find the article. The first place I looked I found it in an unusual place among college term papers.
At the same time, a friend’s name kept coming to mind and was constantly in my thoughts. I wanted to talk to her about something and didn’t realize that she was on my heart for a reason other than for my own interests. I felt compelled to call her at work. I found out she was away on a family emergency and had a great need for prayer support at that time.
These are amazing examples to me of how the Spirit moves us to pray about a need, reveals the need, giving us the privilege of joining in with His work, and honoring Him with our thanksgiving. “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens” (Ps. 68:19 NIV)
