The reason many of us stop praying and become hard toward God is that our interest in prayer is merely sentimental. We read books that say prayer is beneficial, that it quiets the mind and uplifts the soul, and this makes us feel good. It makes us feel right to say we pray. But prayer, in God’s eyes, must go together with intercession. One is impossible without the other.
To intercede in prayer on another’s behalf is to seek the mind of God about that person. Too often, instead of worshipping during prayer, we construct arguments about how prayer works. “I don’t see how you’re going to do this,” we say to God. If we’re arguing with God like this, it’s a sure sign that we aren’t worshipping. We’re hurling demands at his throne and dictating what we want him to do. When we lose sight of God, we become hard and dogmatic toward him. And when we become hard toward God, we become hard toward other people.
Are we worshipping when we pray, lifting our minds up to know God’s thoughts? Are we living in a holy relationship to him? Or are we hard and dogmatic?
“He was appalled that there was no one to intervene” (Isaiah 59:16). If there is no one, do the job yourself. Become the one who worships God and lives in holy relationship to him. Commit to the hard work of intervening in prayer on others’ behalf, and remember that it is, truly, work. But it is work that will sustain you, as the Lord’s “own righteousness sustained him” (v. 16).
