Intercession and Prayer

A week ago, my friend Michael, posted on Facebook that he wanted to do intercessory prayer. He asked his Facebook friends to send him messages of their prayer requests. When I see things like, I usually take people up on their offers because - well why not. But I usually don't expect much from them. But I still sent Michael a request asking to pray for my leaders to grow in their understanding of leadership and incarnational ministry.

I had forgotten that I had shared this with him when I get a message from him later in the evening.

What was crazy is that Michael had no idea that two years ago, when we sat down to make some long term goals for our fellowship we had come up with the number of students leaders we wanted to see over the next five years. We wanted to see 30 students rise up as a leaders on campus by 2017.

(that's been posted in my apartment for the past 2 years)

I stared at his message in disbelief, knowing I had not told him that story or had told him about those goals. In fact they've been placed up in my apartment for so long that I almost forgot about them. It wasn't until I received Michael's message that I remembered we wanted to see 30 student leaders reaching CSUN and being witnesses in their communities on campus.

I was challenged by Michael to be obedient to God's calling to intercede for my friends and for the campus. I had been avoiding taking this call seriously but last week I decided it was time to set aside time to prayer in intercession. It's more than getting a cool story but it's about being obedient to the Lord and praying consistently. I'm reminded of Nehemiah and when heard about the description of Israel this was his response,

"When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven." 

Nehemiah's story reminds me that prayer is not a one time thing but a process, a pattern, a discipline. I'm learning to be more disciplined.