A friend from small group shared that sometimes God wakes her up in the middle of the night with the feeling that she needs to pray, sometimes for specific things or people, sometimes for general things. I was kind of amazed by this, that someone could be so in-tune with the spirit that they are regularly awakened by the Spirit and inspired to pray. And this wasn\u2019t an old, wise, retired person who has nowhere in particular to be the next morning, this was a young lady in her twenties working and finishing her college education who valued her sleep. And the thought that there are Christians out there who are so obedient to this calling of being an intercessor so impressed me that it caused me to question what do I really believe about prayer? How powerful is prayer? If God is all knowing and all loving, why would he want me to pray for someone, especially if the person doesn\u2019t even know that I\u2019m praying for them?<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t find the source off hand, but right around this period of time our pastor shared an excerpt from a book he was reading about this pastor (~1800) who wrote a book and said something like he couldn\u2019t understand how any believer could get a solid night\u2019s sleep without being stirred to pray. The idea that these nighttime prayer warriors exist and continue to live normal and productive work\/family lives intrigued me. I also desired to have that sensitivity to the Spirit.<\/p>\n
So I asked for it. I asked God to place in me a sensitivity to the moving of the Spirit, and told God I would be willing to pray for those whom he put on my heart. I shouldn\u2019t be surprised that on multiple occasions, God has taken me up on this offer. It typically happens like this: I\u2019m sleeping, I\u2019m sleeping, I roll over and all the sudden the my eyes are open and my mind is starting to boot up. \u201cI\u2019m awake, it\u2019s not the kids, I don\u2019t need to use the potty, Becca\u2019s sleeping soundly, I don\u2019t hear anything, why am I awake? Oh yeah, I told God I would be an intercessor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m reluctant, and I certainly have the option of going back to sleep and God won\u2019t try to stop me, but on the other hand it feels good when you know you are being used by the Lord, even if the present does not. Kind of like exercising, I like the results of exercising, but I still don\u2019t care for the discomfort of exercising<\/p>\n
Sometimes I stay in bed, sometimes I get out of bed. Usually it\u2019s very short. Sometimes I know exactly what I\u2019m supposed to pray for, sometimes I have no idea. That\u2019s when praying in the Spirit is important.<\/p>\n
One night God must have thought I needed a little nudge, I\u2019m sure he was right. I had been feeling good all day, but as the evening wore on, my back developed a knot in it. It felt like all of the muscles in my back were condensing into a single location in the right-middle of my back. This was before I started exercising so it wasn\u2019t like I had just finished doing a bunch of pull ups or push ups. It was seriously affecting my sleep. I rolled and repositioned every way possible to get as comfortable as possible. Finally at 2am I postulated that maybe it was God trying to give me a hint. Since I couldn\u2019t get comfortable anyway, I got down on the floor and began to pray. After about 5 minutes of prayer I sat up, and the pain was totally gone. It\u2019s important to note that I wasn\u2019t praying for myself here, I wasn\u2019t praying for pain relief in my back, I was praying what God wanted me to pray. I stood up and stretched a little and I felt really good again. I went back to bed and slept like a baby the rest of the night.<\/p>\n
I think God used this back pain for many purposes. First, it got my attention. Second, it was yet another way for God to confirm to me that he does want to use as intercessors to pray for others. And third that God does hear our prayers, and he is eager to bless us for coming to him in prayer.<\/p>\n
This night-time intercessor thing doesn\u2019t happen frequently, maybe it should and I\u2019m just not in-tune or obedient enough to do it more often. But I\u2019m very thankful for the experiences I\u2019ve had when I am obedient to the call, and I hope I can continue to grow in this area of interceding for others and being sensitive to the leading of the Spirit.<\/p>\n
-Nate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A friend from small group shared that sometimes God wakes her up in the middle of the night with the feeling that she needs to pray, sometimes for specific things or people, sometimes for general things. I was kind of amazed by this, that someone could be so in-tune with the spirit that they are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","wpcat-9-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p504YJ-bM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":893,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2010\/10\/god-wants-you","url_meta":{"origin":730,"position":0},"title":"God wants you (pointing finger)","author":"Nate","date":"October 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"In the style of Uncle Sam Wants You posters, God wants to join his army.\u00a0 Fortunately, God respects our free will and will never force you to do anything.\u00a0 But if you make yourself available, God is eager to use you for his purposes.\u00a0\u00a0And just like Uncle Sam, he doesn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/faith"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/God_Needs_You-2.jpg?fit=480%2C360&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":725,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2010\/08\/mouthpiece-for-god","url_meta":{"origin":730,"position":1},"title":"Mouthpiece for God","author":"Becca","date":"August 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"One Sunday two ladies in our church felt God stir them to go through each of the classrooms during Sunday School and pray for each child individually. 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