Why Pray?

Jesus said to the disciples in teaching them how to pray,  ^"When you pray, don't talk on and on as people do who don't know God. They think God likes to hear long prayers. Don't be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask" Matthew 6:7-8 CEV).

"O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.. . . I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence" (Psalm 139:1-5, 7 NLT)!

My first question in response to the above verses is: Why pray?  The Lord already knows everything I need before I ask Him. God is sovereign and He knows everything about me and everything that will happen to me from the beginning to the ending of my time here on earth.  

So then, why pray?


Pray because God loves us and desires to have a personal relationship with us.   "This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God. My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love" (1 John 4:7-12 MSG)! 

Pray because the Lord desires that we know and love Him more and more. Through prayer we can grow to love the Lord passionately with all our heart and with all our soul in the deepest part of our inner being and know Him with all our mind by spending time with Him (Matt. 22:37).  Two people who love each other desire to be together and to share one another’s life. Through prayer a precious relationship with the Lord grows. 

Ron and I have been married nearly fifty-three years. Our love for each other has grown over time, as we have supported each other through the various seasons of our lives—through hard winters that tested our faith and our marriage; springtimes of new beginnings that stretched us to grow; warm and restful summers that provided relief from trials; and the learning periods of autumn that challenged us to adapt and change. 

In the same way our love-relationship with the Lord grows and changes over time through prayer and our dependence upon Him. As the Lord sees us through the various seasons of our lives, we are drawn closer to Him and our love is deeper and richer. For the Lord’s love is an everlasting love; He draws us unto Himself with lovingkindness (Jer. 31:3). 

Pray because we need the Lord’s guidance and direction in everything we do as we don’t know the way ahead of us. He promises to lead us by ways we have not known, along the unfamiliar path we walk on each day. Surely, He will guide us and  turn the darkness into light before us and make the rough places smooth. He will not forsake us (Isa. 42:16).   

Pray because the Lord is our greatest source of help and strength in trying times. When we are struck by heartaches that overwhelm us and can do nothing about, we become more aware of our need to pray. We are faced with our total dependence upon Him when we have no one else to help us and nowhere else to go.

The more we share our sorrows with the Lord and seek the reassurance found in His Word, the more we are aware of His caring presence. The Holy Spirit is the source of all our comfort, the only One who is always beside us at all times in all our troubles, who is our constant support in suffering (2 Cor. 1:3-5).


Pray because that is the way we find out how the Lord will provide our needs and what He wants us to do in the process. 

Pray because we need to be changed by the Lord so we may glorify Him. Through prayer the Lord transforms us by helping us renew our minds and to no longer conform to worldly ways (Rom. 12:2). 

God’s purpose above all else is that we love Him, glorify and honor Him, and by our obedience He transforms us into His likeness. “And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more”  (2 Cor. 3:18 NLT).

Our purpose for praying needs to shift from being focused on the answers we want to God Himself.  If I don’t see my most important requests answered, but I grow in faith, see His transforming work in my life, and become more centered on Him and not on self then His will is being accomplished in my life. 

I am constantly looking for answers and waiting for results, but this defeats me every time. What are we looking for then? In prayer, we are seeking to the know the Lord more personally, to understand and do His will, and to bring Him glory. Then we are able to see His answers, for His ways and will are often far different than ours.

Pray for yourself and intercede for others because it is the way you see the Lord at work in your own and other people’s lives. When we pray for and with others, we are not only encouraged by what the Lord is doing in our lives, but we see His work in their lives, which also strengthens our faith. Moreover, those we pray for are lifted up and encouraged. One of the highest ways we express our love for others is to pray with and for them. 


Praise the Lord because His steadfast love is better than life (Psalm 63:3). "I will thank the Lord because he is just; I will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High" (Psalm 7:16 NLT). "I will be filled with joy because of you. I will sing praises to your name, O Most High" (Psalm 9:2 NLT). "I will praise you with music on the harp,because you are faithful to your promises, O my God. I will sing praises to you with a lyre,O Holy One of Israel" (Psalm 71:22 NLT).


"Hallelujah! Thank God! And why? Because he's good, because his love lasts. But who on earth can do it— declaim God's mighty acts, broadcast all his praises? You're one happy man when you do what's right, one happy woman when you form the habit of justice" (Psalm 106:1 MSG).


Pray because our prayers are precious to the Lord. In Revelation we are shown just how important our prayers are as we are given a picture of a time to come when the living beings and twenty-four elders will fall down before Jesus the Lamb, holding golden “bowls filled with incense—the prayers of God’s people” (Rev. 5:8 NLT)!” 

At that time incense will be mixed with the prayers of God’s people and offered on the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke from the incense together with the prayers of the saints, will go up before God (Rev. 8:3-4).

Conversational Prayer

Before Jesus gave His disciples the Lord's Prayer or the Model Prayer as it is also called, He taught them how to pray. I find great comfort in knowing that He desires that we pray sincerely and simply, and that God is turned off by phony pray-ers and insincere, manipulative people. Their prayers are directed at their audience in the guise of addressing God. Don't ever think that those who seem more spiritual than you do have a special "in" with God.


Many Christians pray fervently in a heavenly prayer language, cry aloud to God, dance in the Spirit, and feel that their prayers are not effective unless they intercede with such passion. God certainly hears their prayers and answers, but because He knows that we are all different in our personalities and walk with Him, He lovingly receives and responds to those saints who pray in a quiet persistent way. What a relief to realize that can be ourselves when we pray. 


God doesn’t want to hear long speeches either. He simply wants to carry on a conversation with us. Simple, conversational prayer is talking with Jesus about the everday stuff of life. It’s being yourself and talking with a friend who’s easy to talk to. Its like curling up on a soft sofa for a leisurely chat.

Richard Foster wrote, “We do not pretend to be more holy, more pure, or more saintly than we actually are. We do not try to conceal our conflicting and contradictory motives from God—or ourselves.” (Foster, Prayer, 10.) Conversational prayer is being as real and truthful and transparent with the Lord as we can be. We can relax and be ourselves.

In addition, some Christians love to talk and will pray for hours on end. Others don’t enjoy talking at all and will offer brief prayers while many of us fall in between. How little or much we talk to the Lord has nothing to do with whether He hears us or not or the effectiveness of our prayer life. God knows us better than we know ourselves and hears us just the way we communicate.

We don’t have to learn how to talk better or be afraid He will criticize or tune us out. We don’t have to keep apologizing for the way we talk or keep trying to explain what we mean because we fear He’ll misunderstand us as others may do.

We can talk to the Lord without thinking ahead about what we need to say in order to persuade Him to hear and answer us. Rosalind Rinker said, “The more natural the prayer, the more real He becomes. It has all been simplified for me to this extent: prayer is a dialogue between two persons who love each other.” (Rosalind Rinker, Prayer: Conversing with God, 23.)

Conversational prayer is talking heart to heart with the One who knows us better than anyone else. It’s a mutual friendship for the Lord desires we know Him with the intimacy that He knows us. We can even sit quietly together without trying to fill silences.

We are safe and secure and can have complete trust in our soul Friend, the One with whom we can tell our personal concerns and will keep our deepest confidences. Being with the Lord is the most intimate of all relationships.

Conversational prayer is so much more than talking to the Lord. O Hallesby wrote, “Prayer is a definite attitude of our hearts toward God, an attitude which He in heaven immediately recognizes as prayer, as an appeal to His heart. Whether it takes the form of words or not, does not mean anything to God, only to ourselves.”  (O Hallesby, Prayer, 16.)

Prayer may be a moan or tears without any words. It may be as brief as a beggar’s plea. When blind Bartimaeus was sitting by the roadside begging and heard that Jesus was coming, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  The crowd rebuked Bartimaeus, but he shouted the same prayer all the louder until Jesus stopped and called to him (Mark 10:46-50).  

“‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Jesus asked him. The blind man said, ‘Rabbi, I want to see.’ 


‘Go,’ said Jesus, ‘your faith has healed you’” (Mark 10:51-52b). 

What a simple exchange between Bartimaeus and Jesus and with such a miraculous answer. We have this misconception that the longer and more eloquent our prayers the more power we have to persuade God.

Crying out, “Jesus,” is the most powerful name we pray. We can cry out His name in times of desperate need, when we long for a sense of His presence, or to stand against temptation and He will hear and respond.

In Hallesby’s book, Prayer, he wrote, “Prayer is something deeper than words. It is present in the soul before it has been formulated in words. And it abides in the soul after the last words of prayer have passed over our lips.”  (O Hallesby, Prayer, 16.)


Finally, God welcomes our prayers about our daily concerns and daily needs. As Richard Foster said, “Very simply, we begin right were we are: in our families, on our jobs, with or neighbors and friends. Now, I wish this did not sound so trivial, because, on the practical level of knowing God, it is the most profound truth we will ever hear. To believe that God can reach us and bless us in the ordinary junctures of daily life is the stuff of prayer.” (Foster, 11.) To believe that God hears us and responds to us just the way we are frees us to be ourselves when we communicate with Him.

Jesus, Teach Us to Pray

In this study on prayer, we have seen God's Role in Prayer. God created prayer. It begins with Him. He is speaking to us all the time. He is our heavenly parent; He is the Father we go to when we have needs. We pray directly to God the Father to seek His help and provision. 


Second, we have discovered the Holy Spirit's Role in Prayer. The Holy Spirit dwells within in us and guides us in prayer. He helps us in our weakness, intercedes for us. He is our comforter, counselor, and the one who convicts us of sin. 

Now we we will examine Jesus' Role in Prayer as our Teacher.  "It came to pass, as He [Jesus] was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples (Luke 11:1 NKJV).”


Before Jesus gave them the Lord's Prayer, He taught the disciples how to pray (Matthew 6:5-7). 


First, Jesus started His lesson on prayer by rebuking phonies. He said don’t pray showy sermons like hypocrites do in public so they can impress others (Matt. 6:5). “‘When you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! . . . ’” (Matt. 6:5 MSG)?

What a relief that we don’t have to pray in a showy way or be intimidated by those who do. God doesn’t want to hear long speeches either. He simply wants to carry on a conversation with us.

In one of Jesus’ prayers He showed us the kind of person to whom His Father will reveal things. “‘O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding the truth from those who think themselves so wise and clever, and for revealing it to the childlike’” (Matt. 11:25 nlt). To put it more bluntly, “‘You’ve concealed your ways from sophisticates and know-it-alls, but spelled them out clearly to ordinary people” (Matt. 11:25b MSG).

Our Father reveals Himself and listens to ordinary Christians who have childlike faith. Be assured that you can truly be yourself with the Lord and talk to Him the way you ordinarily do in everyday conversations. Who is the one friend you can easily talk to and be yourself? Think of the Lord as that friend, relax and talk to Him in the same way.

Certainly, we need to pray in a respectful manner, not cursing, joking, or acting foolish and silly. But if you have difficulty expressing yourself or have a hard time making yourself understood, be assured the Lord desires to hear you and knows you so well you don’t have to keep explaining yourself to Him. You don’t have to be afraid or freeze up as you may do around someone who is critical of the way you talk and doesn’t understand you.

Ask the Lord to free you from your fears and hang-ups about talking to Him, for He desires to spend time with you. He welcomes our prayers when we feel helpless, in great need, and can’t seem to say what we want to say.

The moment you feel He’s not listening, thank Him for hearing you out. The Spirit of God will reassure you of His presence.

Second, Jesus said we can pray by ourselves behind closed doors with the assurance that our Father who sees us praying in secret hears our every word (Matt. 6:6). He cares about our most personal requests that we feel we can’t share with others. He will reward our closet prayers by answering them out in the open. What hope!

Here’s what the Lord wants us to do when we pray alone, “‘Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.’” (Matt. 6:6 MSG)

Third, Jesus said we can pray briefly with the assurance that He hears and answers. We don’t have to “heap up empty phrases” thinking we’ll be heard because of our “many words” (Matt. 6:7 ESV). We don’t have to pray over and over again about the same thing. How encouraging!

Short prayers are powerful. So when we begin to feel guilty that we’re not praying long or hard enough, let us remind ourselves that the Lord hears and responds to our brief requests.

“Moreover, we don’t have to learn special prayer techniques that will gain us more favor with God. “‘The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply” (Matt. 6:7-9a MSG).

Seven Prayer Realities

 One workbook that has profoundly impacted my spiritual life and everything I write about is Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God by Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King. In their workbook they describe how we experience God. The authors call them seven realities, which I have quoted here.

“1. God is always at work around you.

2. God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.

3. God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.

4. God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.

5. God’s invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.

6. You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.

7. You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.

Seven Prayer Realities

Based on the seven realities for Experiencing God, here are those realities adapted to the Spirit’s role in prayer:

1. The indwelling Spirit is always working in us, revealing how God is at work around us, and impressing upon our hearts how we should pray about God’s work.

2. The Spirit seeks an ongoing personal relationship with us. He pursues a relationship with us through prayer and at any other time He so chooses. He impresses needs upon our hearts and prompts us to intercede for the people concerned. His Spirit also moves us into action on behalf of the needs of others.

3.  On a momentary and ongoing basis, the Spirit calls us to serve God and to pray that we will do so according to His will and purposes.

4. The Spirit speaks to us and reveals God’s promises and purposes to us through the Bible, circumstances, people, prayer, and worship. He is continually showing us Himself, His ways and desires, and how and what we should pray and do in response to His leadings. 

5. Anytime, day or night, the Spirit may call us to minister to others, prompt us to pray, and serve Christ in a specific way. This often causes spiritual conflict and a crisis of faith as we struggle between choosing to obey or not.

The Spirit daily calls us to serve Christ in small and large ways and according to His will and purposes. This call to service requires obedience and action. The Spirit may prompt us to call or visit someone now. We must choose between obeying Him or refusing because we don’t want to do as God desires at that moment.

6.  By prayer and the Spirit’s promptings, He helps us make major and necessary adjustments in order to become a part of what God is doing and how He desires to work in and through us.

7. The Spirit reveals Christ to us, who we come to know by experience as we pray, read Gods Word, do His will, and see Him accomplish His will and purposes in and through us.

The Spirit is our Counselor who personally gives us wisdom and guides us as we pray. He leads us in the right direction on straight paths. He watches over us, advising and counseling us along the way. (Prov. 4:11; Ps. 32:8).

 “God reveals His purposes to us so we can join Him in prayer for the kingdom of God.  He reveals Himself to us through prayer because He loves us and desires to draw us into an intimate love relationship with Him” (Blackaby, 81).

Our Comforter Part 2

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought . . .” (Rom. 8:26a). He is our Comforter who helps us pray and personally ministers to us.

How do we draw upon the Spirit’s comfort? First, by turning to God’s Word no matter how discouraged we may feel. As we seek God and search Scripture, the Spirit will lead us to the passages we need to reassure us, encourage us, and even answer some of our questions. The Spirit speaks to us through Scripture.

Though the Spirit is always indwelling us, we begin realizing His comforting presence as we meditate on His promises and express gratitude that He is caring for us.

As we pray, the Spirit graciously takes on Himself the weight of our concerns. “He helps our infirmity, relieves our suffering, and enables us to bear the heavy burden without fainting under the load,” said Charles Spurgeon. (Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Holy Spirit's Intercession,”  No. 1532, April 11th, 1880, Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.)

 Though nothing may change about our trials we begin to see that He is indeed present with us reassuring us of His care.

And when floods of trials continue to rise and threaten to drown our hope, the Spirit quickly helps us if we but call out to Him. Though the flood may continue to rise higher and raging currents nearly drown us and destroy everything around us and do great damage, the Spirit is right in the midst of the flood with us, keeping our head above water.

“In the same manner as hope sustains the soul, so does the Holy Spirit strengthen us under trial,” Spurgeon said. “Hope operates spiritually upon our spiritual faculties, and so does the Holy Spirit, in some mysterious way,” operates upon our hearts so that we are spiritually strengthened in our trials. (Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Holy Spirit's Intercession,”  No. 1532, April 11th, 1880, Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.)

The Spirit helps us pray by revealing light when we are in the dark. When we are so perplexed we cannot see how to solve our problems and cannot find a promise in Scripture to meet that need, the Spirit teaches us all things and reminds us of everything Christ has told us in His Word. The Spirit guides us in prayer, helping us in our infirmity.

Refining of Our Faith

What is God doing through suffering?  He is refining and purifying our faith in our trials. “‘Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried  you in the furnace of affliction’” (Isa. 48:10 esv).

When we pray for someone to be relieved of extreme pain or deliverance from a trial and it doesn’t happen, we must pray that the person’s faith will come out as gold in his or her suffering. Our own faith is also being tested as we care for suffering loved ones.

He promises that if we call upon His name, He will answer us. He will assure us that we are His. And in our suffering we will be comforted by His care and we will say with renewed assurance,  ‘The LORD is my God’ ” (Zech. 13:9b esv)

I don’t understand how or why God refines a person’s faith such as Jerry who was in so much pain as he was dying.  My mother-in-law had Alzheimer’s disease for many years. The last eight months of her life, she was confined to bed lingering near death, her body emaciated and mind destroyed by that terrible disease.

She loved the Lord and served Him faithfully her whole life. As impossible as it may seem her faith was being refined in the furnace of Alzheimer’s disease. How God brought that about in her condition is a mystery. God was refining her faith and ours as well even though we don’t understand how.

We have this misconception about how God works and who He works through. We think we or others are only valuable to God and can bring Him glory if they have  certain abilities and quality of life. We may think that people who suffer severely and/or are significantly limited do not have any quality of life. We don’t realize their significance in God’s eyes and what He is doing in and through them even if it is only apparent to God. 

In times like these we need to ask the Lord to reveal in what areas He is refining our faith. Does He want us to learn how to trust Him more and worry less? Which fruit of the Spirit does He desire to grow and mature in our spiritual life?

Affirm and thank Him for His supporting presence instead of accusing God of abandoning you. Remember as you pray that the Holy Spirit is within you, comforting and supporting you.  Ask the Lord to help you see and experience His support and strength. 

Our Comforter

Karen shared with me about her friend’s suffering. “Our dear friend Jerry has been a major intercessor over the years—a prayer warrior in the truest sense of the word. But now he is suffering from terminal cancer, and the pain and nausea are so intense that he can barely swallow. His question to me is, ‘Why, when so many are praying for me, is nothing happening?’

“I don’t have any answers for Jerry,” said Karen.

My own faith would be tested just watching a loved one suffer such intense pain without relief. It makes no sense.

One woman said to me a few years after her daughter was murdered and her son killed in an accident, “If God doesn’t care for me, I don’t want to have anything to do with Him.”

I don’t know how I would have felt about God if I had the same losses. I just know that in such times, we need God’s comfort and loving care more than ever.

As Karen said, “It doesn’t mean we need answers, as much as we need our questions validated. Job never got any real answers, did he? Yet he did come to a place of relinquishment and trust.”

We don’t know the mind of God nor why He makes certain judgements or acts in certain ways. His ways and why He allows some Christians to suffer so intensely is beyond our understanding. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor” (Rom. 11:33-34 ESV)?

Why God?

The hardest time to pray is when we are heartbroken, don’t know what to do, and see no answers in sight. We desperately need to know God cares, but we have questions and doubts.

I’ve seen many people walk away from their relationship with the Lord due to disappointment over a heartbreaking loss. They were angry and bitter and felt forsaken and wanted nothing more to do with God when He didn’t answer the way they expected.

Let’s look at two different approaches we may take when praying about our trials. One approach weakens our faith and causes us to feel alienated from God. The second approach helps us realize God is our tender-loving comforter and caretaker.

The first is the “Why me, God?” approach.  We keep questioning God and wanting answers. We need to understand the reasons we or others suffer.

Some trials have a direct cause and effect relationship. If a car ran a red light and broadsided your car that is the cause of your suffering. The effect may be that you were seriously injured and permanently disabled. You know the reason why, but that answer won’t satisfy you.

Why did this happen to me? is what we really desire to know. We want to know the reasons why we “personally” experienced such a terrible accident that changed our life, and what was God trying to accomplish?

Why did God do this to me or let this happen? we also ask. In the first place, God does not harm us, we humans harm one another. Because we are free to do both good and bad, we are free to hurt each other. We have an intimate, personal relationship with God. But if He took away our freewill, we would be like robots with no mind or will of our own.

Unless we were the direct cause of the problem, God is most likely not going to answer us. God didn’t tell Job the reason why he suffered the deaths of his ten children and the loss of everything He owned. Moreover, understanding the reasons won’t change our suffering. We still have to deal with it. Asking God why is a normal reaction to suffering, but we can become stuck trying to make sense of our suffering.

If we focus on wanting to know why we cause ourselves more grief. God may not give us answers that satisfy us in human terms. When this happens we become more discouraged and our prayer-life is weakened.

We dwell on how badly we feel and what we want. As a result we become more and more desperate in prayer. This way of praying only increases our pain and weakens our trust in the Lord. Asking why is faith-defeating.

On the other hand, many Christians accept whatever happens and say that they don’t ask God why. They don’t need to know, but they may feel abandoned and alone.

In the second approach to prayer and suffering is that we seek God’s comfort, compassion, and support. In this way of praying we open our hearts and minds to the indwelling Spirit’s presence. For example, when we’re hurting we don’t want others to give us advice. We need to be with loved ones who will bring us the most comfort. We need their reassuring presence.

When we’re hurting we need our Comforter. We need His loving caring presence. If your own child needed treatment for a terminal disease and the treatment was painful, your presence would comfort and encourage your child. You could have prevented your child’s pain by not allowing him or her to be subjected to the medical treatment, but then the disease would only grow worse.

You can’t stop the treatment even though it hurts your child because it may cure him or her. But when your child cries, you can comfort, hold, and soothe your child. Your loving presence alone helps ease the pain of such an ordeal. 

So the Spirit of God is present with us when we hurt. Though He has the power to relieve our pain He may not do so, but He will comfort us and stay close to us throughout the ordeal.

The indwelling Spirit is our ever present helper and comforter. Instead of crying out, “Why, Lord, why?” let us pray, “Lord, comfort me. Help me. Let me feel your presence.”

Let us open our hearts to Him and find healing for our souls and respite from our suffering.  For the indwelling Spirit is with us twenty-fours hours a day seven days a week, so we can call on God at anytime. He will never abandon us because He always lives to care for and console us. He is our constant comforter and helper in prayer. The Holy Spirit comes alongside us, lives with us, and indwells us forever so we can completely rely on Him. 

The only thing we may be able to change about our situation is our attitude, mind set, and the approach we take to prayer. If we focus on our relationship with the Lord and His indwelling, supportive presence we have the help and comfort we need to see us through. When we harbor anger, bitterness, and keep asking why, we feel alienated from God.

As I practice opening my heart and listening to the indwelling Spirit, it’s amazing the many practical ways He guides me and reveals what I should do.

The Spirit Burdens us to Pray for Others

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)