My First Year Lessons on Praying and Interceding

Reviewing the Archives: A peek back at foundational articles from the first year of this publication

I like to hike in the woods. Back forest trails, with hills and bends amid tall, tall trees are among my favorite places to be. I like especially like hiking up high mountains, above the tree line, or down, down deep in a lush valley near a stream of rushing waters of snow run-off or from a bubbling spring.

Sometimes on a trail I can get around a bend and see ahead, or get to the top of a hill and look back where I’ve been. Both are beautiful and informative. It’s amazing to me the view difference from the bottom to the top!

Palisades State Park along the Big Sioux River, seen from below the cliffs and from above the water..

As we end our fourth year on Substack, I wanted to take a moment to share some cornerstone pieces from our archives. For newer subscribers, think of this as your orientation to conversations we've already started. For longtime readers, these selections provide a valuable refresh of foundational content.

Here I briefly introduce six early articles in hopes you will continue reading all or any you are interested in. I do chuckle at my writing from then, but the principles remain the same.

So grab a cup of coffee, or tea if that’s your thing, settle in and enjoy:

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The activity of praying is common, but it is not natural to us. It's not like eating, breathing or sleeping - it is activity that must be learned, and practiced.

Have you ever tried to take on a new task without any guidelines or instructions? Remember when you learned to ride a bicycle, or drive a car, or run the computer program at work? It felt awkward at first, didn’t it? Especially if you didn’t have a guide or manual.

When you start working out at a gym, it’s daunting, all those machines! Meeting with a workout coach is a great benefit to learn to use them correctly so you get the most benefit from it. Whenever we learn a new task or activity, it helps to have instructions or an outline or key steps to get us started.

We have some recommendations for praying people. Having these three prayer helps should make it easier to get started and stick to it:

Keep reading Praying Must Be Learned and learn the three tools crucial to a consistent time of fervent prayer and intercession.

Our cry to the Lord is that we would be a vessel of His choosing for His usefulness. We are a lump of clay on a wheel and He is the divine Potter, so may He form us and fashion us for a purpose all His own and use us accordingly.

In a recent newsletter we looked at how to FOCUS our prayers. Each letter was a reminder, and the U was to pray for usefulness, that is on asking the Lord to make us useful for the Kingdom of God. I often pray that - like a staff in Moses hand or like the sling in young David’s, I might be of use for Him. May He fit us for every good work of service, that we would bear fruit, do the work of ministry, stand firm is all His will.

And, like Epaphras, may we be made useful as prayers, laboring always for the saints of God. May our private prayer times be constant intercession for one another (or imploring the divine grace and mercy in behalf of others. Whitfield) to be mature and stand assured in all the will of God.

Keep reading Praying Like Clay and discover how we could perhaps be extraordinary Christ followers.

In the Old Testament, Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to lead the people of God in repair of the city’s broken walls, which had fallen as a result of their disobedience to the Lord, with exile and being ruled by a pagan king as punishment.

Then in chapter 8 we read…So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month...v 6, And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands: and they bowed their heads, and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground...v 13, And on the second day were gathered together the chief of the fathers of all the people, the priests, and the Levites, unto Ezra the scribe, even to understand the words of the law...v 18, Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, according unto the manner.

Then in chapter 9, v 1-3, Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackcloth’s, and earth upon them…

Keep reading Gather Together To Pray and hear what I think we should do instead of a Wednesday night Bible Study.

Our intercessions (praying on behalf of another) are largely for the people of God, and we include a few verses to use to pray for the church in each newsletter. This is a time to read the verse and then pray that back to the Lord, asking Him to bring that word to pass – to answer His promise on behalf of his children. Pray these for your own fellowship, your pastor, elders, etc and the body of believers.

We use these verses specifically because they were prayed by Jesus and by the Apostles and the Lord answered them, and continues answer them! These were prayed not just then, but also today — which is why these are preserved in writing for us.

So that we might also pray them!

Why?

Keep reading Focus On The Church and get Five Scriptures To Pray For the Church

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?

Conflict with others and in ourselves comes from desire – a wanting of something we do not currently have. Someone else has what we covet (breaking the 10th Commandment) and yet we want so much we plot and scheme to win it, or steal it, or take it by force.

You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war.

We are not only at war with one another, but certainly within ourselves -- the lusts of the flesh and desires for pleasure warring within us. Coveting will inevitably lead to conflict. We believe we will be satisfied when we get what someone else has.

And what does James say?

Yet you do not have because you do not ask.

Keep reading You Pray Wrongly and find out more about praying rightly.

We all have a problem, or more accurately, problems. And a problem needs a solution. But how we find solutions as Christians ought to be altogether different than how the world finds its solutions.

Too often, however, we Believers in Christ seek answers from the very world that’s causing the problems! In other words, we look to everything but God. And if we look first to the world for help, we will be sorely disappointed time after time.

Prayer, says Chambers, is the answer. It is the solution to any and every problem, issue, or conundrum. Not just a solution, but the solution.

We’ve written before about not waiting to pray as a last resort, and instead turning to the Lord first. We do not have (the solution) because we do not ask (the Lord) - James 4:2.

Is it pride? Or selfishness? Maybe laziness, or ignorance? Perhaps we’ve not been taught the necessity of prayer, the purpose, the reality, nor the need of it?

Keep reading What’s Your Problem and you will see why we have problems to begin with, and what to do about them.

Thanks for reading this edition about past editions. A couple of these only had 10 or 12 views when they came out. Of course we only had about 10 readers then! But we’ve grown some, and this introduces some articles that have as much insight now as then.

Photo by Taylor Flowe on Unsplash

If you find any of these helpful, please give it a like to let me know you appreciate my work. I’ve seen a lot of fellow writers add the Buy Me A Coffee feature, which I think is a great way to support them in their writing, but I’d prefer if you’d buy my books. The details of two are below, and they might benefit you as well—and me!

Also, I do appreciate any Subscriptions here on Substack. All the content has been free, so a paid one helps support the work and let’s me keep spending more time praying and writing. So please consider that as well. And pray for me as I pray for you!