Intercessory Prayer for Awakening

I'm currently involved in doing a study with my women's group. This week's lesson was very powerful for me and I would like to share with you one excerpt from the study as we seek awakening to the Spirit of Christ for those who have not yet come to follow the only One who has the words of eternal life.

Intercessory Prayer for Awakening

excerpt from “Children of the Day”, Beth Moore, p. 128-129

And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Matthew 13:58

He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Mark 6:5-6

Perhaps one reason awakening waits is that we are afraid for God to do whatever it would take. We fear the uncertainty of revival. We don’t trust God with the work of his own spirit. What if he embarrasses us? Or makes us change our minds? God won’t work contrary to his word but perhaps our greater worry may be that he could work contrary to our tastes. He may not use our methods. Perhaps many reasons cause a fresh awakening to wait.

The following prayer is offered in humility, in lack and in want. We cannot put words on a tongue detached from a heart. If this is not you and if these sins are not yours and these aches find no place in your soul, please don’t own them. If, on the other hand, these words could flow from your own pen, pray them with me.

Most glorious, all-powerful, merciful God:

Your son died for more than these. We thank you for what you’ve already done, but we beg you to do infinitely more. Look upon this ailing planet, pulsing with the hopeless, the helpless, the hiding and the dying. You have willed that people would not die in their sins but be saved and redeemed through your son, Jesus Christ. You promised that the cross was big enough for us all, with everlasting arms reaching to the ends of the earth. We know what your word says you can do and we confess to you that many of us have not yet seen it with our eyes, but we feel it stirring in our souls. Hosanna, Lord! Save now!

We willingly confess to you our sinful arrogance. We have prescribed to you by what means you should heal souls. You , the solitary healer have refused to sign your name to our prescriptions. We ask you this day to write your name across our sky and bring revival! Save by whatever means bring you glory. Bring it any way you like, but bring it, Lord. We free you from using our methods. We free you from using our denominational names. We free you from using our buildings, though we welcome you to them. We free you even from using us, though we cast ourselves before you at your complete disposal and beg that you would. Use none of us. Use all of us. Use whatever people and whatever means honor you most, but do it, Lord, Please do it!

We confess to you our appalling narcissism in asking you to mirror us. We confess to you our oversophistication and snobbery. We confess to you that we are terrified of your Holy Spirit. We confess our pathetic arrogance for having forbidden signs and wonders when there could be no greater sign and wonder than a tidal wave of salvation rolling on our dry banks. Oh, Jesus, that we would not leave you to marvel that you could do so few miracles among us because of our unbelief.

We repent this day for not trusting you with what revival should look like. We repent this day from prioritizing our dignity over your downpour. We confess to you that we have torn pages from our bibles and handed them back to you and demanded that you work through what was left. We confess to you this day that the tent pegs of scripture are vastly wider than our imaginations and our expectations.

Lord, if souls are saved by the thousands of thousands and millions of millions, we pledge to you this day that we will not, in our sectarianism, pick apart the process and reason how it was not legitimate. We are ready even if it’s messy. Even if, atop the beautiful feet carrying the good news are bruised and broken bodies of willing evangelists.

Open heaven. Rain down, Holy Spirit. We repent for having asked you to respect our boundaries. We bow now to your boundless Spirit and make room over our lowered heads for you to fall upon us with power and might and a firestorm of your great affection. You have loved us so. You have loved us well. Carve our hearts with your cross and love through us, Lord. Oh, Holy Spirit of the living Christ, come without limit. We have known you were able but begged you to be willing. All the while, we have been disabled because we have been unwilling.

To what conceivable degree we could have held them in our hands, we turn the reins of revival back over to the rider who is faithful and true and we plead that you would not let them rest on the neck of that great horse but that you’d bid him run.

Do what you want, but we plead for you to do it now. Do it here. Make your name glorious. Save now!

In the holy name of Christ our King, Amen.