It is three in the morning here in Hawaii as I write this piece. The rain is falling softly on the beautiful plants outside my door. I have just come in after gazing up at the night stars and marvelling at how the sky seems so similar over here to back home.
The night is peaceful, and I begin to ponder the common chords of love that seem to run through humanity. So many nations exist in this diverse world and yet it seems that there is such common values of love and family amongst many people groups of the world.
This thought I find encouraging, especially in the face of daily news of the tragedy and tyranny on every corner of the globe. I cannot even watch the news as the sadness of the world overwhelms my soul. I prefer to pray and be found in the secret place of intimate prayer, interceding for this lost and dying world with the One who loves it so much that he sent his only son, as in John chapter 3 verse 16.
I believe Yahveh has been hugely mistaken and misunderstood in today’s world. I know Him to be a compassionate God who cares deeply and mourns with those who mourn. Does Yeshua love Palestine? Yes and all the people in it. Does Yeshua care for Africa? Yes and He mourns with her over her corruption, wars and innocent deaths.
So when I commune with Elohim my creator God in surrendered prayer, asking for God’s agenda of what to pray and how, I know that He who loves His world will speak. I believe that like fresh water to a stagnant well, His words of hope, peace and restoration will flow through prayerful mouths and out, creating movement in the heaven’s and breakthroughs on the earth.
An experience of intercession for Thailand
Two Scriptures come to mind for this and back up my faith statements about the power of intercession. The first is James chapter 5 verse 16:
“The earnest prayers of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.”
The second scripture is found in Matthew chapter 18 verse 18:
“I tell you the truth that whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
In one particular time of intercession, God led me to pray for Thailand, and down on my knees, his prayer came forth for His restoring and cleansing blood to break through the red-light districts of Thailand. For heaven to invade the darkness, the lies, the perversion, the oppression and for His love to touch hearts and heal inner pain.
Many years later, Yahweh took me to Thailand to pray with and encourage the long-term missionaries there in their work to bring about God’s kingdom of light and life and hope and restoration. I heard the Lord speak into my heart, ‘I have not forgotten your prayers. Now I am sending you to be a blessing over there and to encourage the weary ones who have served me and prayed with their whole hearts’.
This experience was brief as I only went for three days, but sure to his word, I was able to pray with and for two families who serve there long-term and pray for energy, health, provision, breakthroughs and God’s hand on their ministries to continue despite opposition.
It was a joy to pray with one woman while we sat in the dirt, and she began fervently praying in her Mother tongue, a Chinese dialect for what the Lord placed on her heart to pray.
The importance of intercession
What is all this for, this talk of intercession and the power of prayer? My hope is to ignite you and fuel you to be a person of prayer and part of a movement of prayer.
Nations need our prayers right now. Governments need our prayers right now. God is looking for yielded sons and daughters, who will linger in his presence and pray out his heart. I believe God is looking for people who will yield and pray and who he can entrust with his heart. ‘For my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’ (Isaiah 56:7.)
There is much power in worship without agenda too as there is in prayer. It fills me with joy to see more ministries rising up that are all about worship and who will linger in Gods presence and incline their ear to hear him speak.
In Ruth Heflin’s book Glory, she says that, as her little church congregation in Jerusalem worshipped, the Lord would speak into her heart that he was pouring out his spirit and touching other parts of Israel.
The next day they would read and hear of how God had broken out with his restoration, touch, joy or revival in other parts of Israel. This story impacted me, and I am now passionate about the importance and preciousness of our act of lingering in God’s presence whether through prayer or worship. For He alone knows what and how to pray for His lost and dying world. He alone knows how we can partner with Him both practically and spiritually to be his mouthpiece, his hands or his feet. His love was always supposed to bind us together as his created humanity.
When we love Yeshua and minister to him or we love the one on the street we are operating in His original thread, his original design of upholding his values of love and family. My prayer is that we would grow into this call and learn to honour his sacrifice with our lives.
Liana Monaghan lives in coastal South Australia and enjoys songwriting, singing, worshipping and dancing with Holy Spirit. She lives in a community house with two other musicians and her husband who is an Artist and a facilitator of corporate events. Liana works with children as a nanny and is part of Tree of Life Church community.