Here we are at the beginning of 2022.
As we begin this new year, I feel there is an invitation in the Spirit to be renewed in intercession— but in a slightly different spirit.
Rather than a challenge to pray more, pray bolder, pray more fervently, or to set new ambitious prayer disciplines in motion— challenges we have all heard ( and perhaps even issued) many times before— I feel there is a deeper invitation. It’s an invitation to embrace fully both sides of the petition “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” ( Mt 6:10). Both Your kingdom come AND your will be done, two petitions which we all easily agree with, yet, when it come to the actual application of praying them out we find we are tempted to lean into one and skip over the other.
You see each one of these petitions appeals to a different kind of person or even the same person, but in different seasons of life. The “kingdom come person” is typically focused on the power of the kingdom being seen: healings, miracles, salvations, new church plants, missions, and supernatural breakthroughs. They are focused on the expansion of the kingdom of God in every sphere of society and it manifesting more intensely in our midst as discipleship and unity flourish, marriages are renewed, love for God and others is awakened, Jesus is encountered… So they pray, “Come Kingdom of God!”
On the other side, we have the “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” person. They are not as intent on pursuing a specific request for the kingdom to manifest, but rather, they are drawn to the holy, sure, and safe posture of surrender. They don’t trust themselves to discern what God wants to do, but they deeply trust the goodness and sovereignty of the Lord, so for them, it’s wisest and safest to simply pray for God’s will to be done rather than to speculate on what that will is. Their submitted heart allows them to embrace loss, stripping, and reshaping without fighting or resisting God. “Be done will of God!” they pray.
KINGDOM COME
Clearly, both of these are good and necessary, but as I mentioned, we tend to pick one to major on and skip over the other. If for example, we are a “kingdom come” person, we passionately and boldly pray for what we believe God’s will to be, fighting every thought of doubt, seeking to stand strong in faith without wavering— but then frequently finding ourselves disappointed, even heartbroken, as healings don’t happen, churches do split, and addictions resurface. How do we then pray with the same faith next time?
WILL BE DONE
If we are a “will be done” person, we are quick to yield to the will of God but find we don’t share the same sense of zeal for intercession, because, well… why pray if it’s all about yielding to the will of God and He is sovereign? He’ll do what He wills if we pray and He’ll do what he wills if we don’t, won’t He? We can’t improve upon His will, so why prioritize intercession?
If we only lean into this petition, we may come to the conclusion (even if we wouldn’t likely say it out loud) that our prayers don’t really change anything other than our hearts. Unlike our kingdom come friend, we don’t risk disappointment because we never really go all in, and ask in persistent, “knock and keep knocking” faith for anything. Our hearts are full of yielding, but there is no “ask”.
Maybe you identify with one or the other of these positions, or maybe you feel you swing between the two of them. Both extremes need an adjustment, both left to themselves are less than God’s best for us. Disillusionment and soul-crushing disappointment on one side and indifferent, passive, prayerlessness on the other.
So what if we prayed them both deeply? What would that look like?
In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed for the kingdom to come. With perfect faith and fervency, He interceded with magnificent requests— every one of which has been or will be granted. Look again at the High Priestly Prayer of John 17— these are no small requests! His example inspires us to pray with bold, soaring, faith, to ask requests worthy of One so powerful and so infinitely loving— our Heavenly Father. Yet in the very same time of prayer, Jesus also went to the deepest place of yielding His will and desires to the will of the Father, praying “not my will but yours be done” (Lu 22:42), forever setting the example of full submission for the Church to follow. Jesus married both these forms of petition together so that neither faith nor surrender were compromised by the other, but rather empowered.
WHERE WE ARE
We’ve just come through two years of Covid, two years of heightened anxiety, polarized politics, and division over to vax or not to vax. Two years that have held much loss for all of us, and for some of us, devastating levels of loss. Some of us are reeling emotionally, daily just trying to keep our heads above water, putting all our focus and energy into just coping with what’s right in front of us. Others have fared better, even reasonably well— but for all of us, we’ve been humbled, we’ve been shaken, we’re not nearly as cocky as we maybe once were in days when everything was easy and predictable.
So in this hour, a new, maybe more mature, posture of intercession is fitting.
Let me give you some thoughts on how these two petitions can abide in more unity as we enter into 2022.
Make sure what you are contending for is actually in harmony with scripture.
If we are to unite these petitions, we need to be guided by scripture, for scripture reveals the will and the ways of God.
If you are asking for something supernatural that is well beyond what the Apostles walked in you may have fallen into what theologians call “an over-realized eschatology”, meaning, an expectation that the promises that pertain to the age to come are being inappropriately applied to our present age. There are some promises (no more sorrow, no more death, no more sickness, lions lying down with lambs, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, etc, etc.) that will not be fully realized until we are in the New Heaven and Earth phase of God’s plan. Right now, in this age, there will be many foretastes of the kingdom-that’s-coming, but it is not available on demand. It is here, but it’s not fully here. We can expect both times of abundant supernatural activity and times where it seems very sparse. This is the nature of our in-between time (2 Cor 4:7-16, Phil 3:20,21, 2 Cor 12:5-10).
Another area where we stray beyond the guardrails of scripture is praying for God to override people’s will. He won’t do that. He won’t force people to vote a certain way, attend a certain meeting, or even yield to His conviction. He will soften, woo, convict, draw, but He never overrides our decisions so don’t pray that He would Ps 81:12, Rom 1:24,25).
Hold tightly to the WHAT and loosely to the HOW and the WHEN
If there is a promise that God has given you, (which is confirmed and in harmony with scripture) ask for it in faith and keep asking, no matter how long it takes or how many setbacks you encounter. The Father loves the man or woman of persevering faith. He’s hung up the portraits of His heroes of faith in the hall of Hebrews 11 for us all to see how proud he is of them. Let’s be like these in our generation, asking for the kingdom with steadfast faith.
Hold tightly, against hope believe (Rom 4:18), but don’t dictate when the promise will be fulfilled. Be flexible, keep yielding the timeline to the Lord. Let the prayer of “your will be done” take the lead when it comes to the when.
Similarly, don’t dictate how it should look when it’s fulfilled. Think for a moment about the terrible struggle the disciples had with their expectation that the Messiah would be a political and military leader. Right up to the ascension, they asked questions like, “is now the time when you will restore the kingdom?”( Act 1:6). We laugh at them and make sermon jokes about how they just didn’t get it, but we too have our own perspective of how God’s promises will look when they are fulfilled and those perspectives can blind us to what he’s doing right in front of us.
I’m not talking about using weaselly, mental gymnastics to try to twist an unfulfilled promise into a fulfilled one by contorting the very nature of the promise. This isn’t about redefining realities, that just leaves us empty, feeling duped. Let’s instead hold to the essence of the promise, and faithfully, fervently, pray for it to be fulfilled— while being flexible on the actual form.
Contend for “the what” with all the passion of “your kingdom come”.
Yet hold “the when and the how” fully submitted under the leadership of “your will be done”.
I can’t tell you how much grief this principle will save you. This is the glorious sweet spot that leads to enduring, joyful, intercession.
AWAKENING INTERCESSION
So as we consider 2022, let’s seek to walk out this more mature posture of intercession. And let’s also be aware that right now, in this first month of the year, the Lord is gently refreshing and awakening intercession. For many, intercession is a ministry that’s fallen quiet through the last months of 2021, or it’s been a ministry that has been taken over by anxious striving.
The Lord is awakening intercession that is Spirit-filled and Spirit-carried. It is full of faith, vision, and a sense of newness. I want to encourage you to simply receive it by grace, through faith. Step into it.
The Father also wants to remind us that He answers prayer. I know you know that theologically, but does your heart know it? If that truth feels like a struggle, perhaps return to the hall of Hebrews 11 and let the chorus that these heroes sing — that God is faithful, that He is the rewarder of those that diligently seek him— restore your heart.
Intercession in 2022
Awesome Noreen!
Hi Sara and other in Canada, how are you?