Lately, I’ve been learning what it is to experience the “impulses of the Holy Spirit” for others in prayer and intercession.
It’s not that I haven’t prayed for others before, but sometimes I haven’t known how to pray or where to start (Romans 8:26). It’s almost like I was trying to muster something up to check it off a list. So recently I began to invite the Holy Spirit to completely take over my intercession. I made room and time for it daily and watched how my normal 2 minute “Lord please bless so and so” prayers unintentionally turned into long and intimate times of conversation with the Father. I had to give up some other things I was filling my time with and ask the Father to give me His vision and heart for others. And when I did, He began filling my mind and spirit with specific things to ask and believe for. He showed me how to pray His kingdom and His will.
Some of you may be hurting so badly that you can’t imagine you have any energy or business praying for joy or peace for someone else. But I will testify that something so special happens when we pray with a deficit. I have even seen my circumstances change when I start praying for someone else’s. Sometimes it’s my heart that changes and that’s what everything else flows from (Proverbs 4:23) and other times my very specific needs are met abundantly.
There is a unity that pleases the Father when we talk to Him about the needs of others even when ours have yet to be met. I think it’s drinking of the Holy Spirit like it says in 1 Corinthians 12:13 (TPT), “For by one Spirit we all were immersed and mingled into one single body. And no matter our status—whether we are Jews or non-Jews, oppressed or free—we are all privileged to drink deeply of the same Holy Spirit.”
So, life and peace to you, my friends, as you live by the impulses of the Holy Spirit and see spiritual realities in your prayers!
-Jessie D.