Dear Central Family,

In her book that has now become a modern classic, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Riley Haley Barton writes of her experience with intercessory prayer. She claims that as she has deepened her capacity to be with God with what is true about herself and has learned more about how to wait for God’s deliverance in her own life, it has changed her approach to praying for others, as well as, her understanding of intercessory prayer. She now realizes that intercessory prayer is not primarily about thinking that she knows what someone else needs and trying to wrestle it from God. Rather, it is being present to God on another’s behalf, listening for the prayer of the Holy Spirit that is already being prayed for that person before the throne of grace, and being willing to join God in that prayer.

Barton gives an example of this in regard to how she uses prayer lists. Now, as she sits quietly in God’s presence daily, she sees who God brings to mind and heart. As they come into her awareness, she invites them into that place where God’s Spirit and her spirit are communing, and “we sit together with that person.” She doesn’t feel burdened by the need to figure anything out or to say words that indicate that she somehow has a handle on the situation: “It is enough to share the love, the rest, and the care of God with them in this way” (148).

I find Barton’s words helpful in taking to heart Jesus’ command to “love one another . . . as I have loved you” (John 13: 34). Perhaps the biggest incentive we can imagine for sitting together with God and another person from time to time is knowing that the living Christ himself intercedes for us through the Spirit (Romans 8: 26) with sighs deeper than any words imaginable. 

As we continue to celebrate the Easter season, may we be attuned to how God is always inviting us more deeply into His love and living presence.

Rick