God will nudge you, if you ask

A friend from small group shared that sometimes God wakes her up in the middle of the night with the feeling that she needs to pray, sometimes for specific things or people, sometimes for general things. I was kind of amazed by this, that someone could be so in-tune with the spirit that they are regularly awakened by the Spirit and inspired to pray. And this wasn’t an old, wise, retired person who has nowhere in particular to be the next morning, this was a young lady in her twenties working and finishing her college education who valued her sleep. And the thought that there are Christians out there who are so obedient to this calling of being an intercessor so impressed me that it caused me to question what do I really believe about prayer? How powerful is prayer? If God is all knowing and all loving, why would he want me to pray for someone, especially if the person doesn’t even know that I’m praying for them?

I can’t find the source off hand, but right around this period of time our pastor shared an excerpt from a book he was reading about this pastor (~1800) who wrote a book and said something like he couldn’t understand how any believer could get a solid night’s sleep without being stirred to pray. The idea that these nighttime prayer warriors exist and continue to live normal and productive work/family lives intrigued me. I also desired to have that sensitivity to the Spirit.

So I asked for it. I asked God to place in me a sensitivity to the moving of the Spirit, and told God I would be willing to pray for those whom he put on my heart. I shouldn’t be surprised that on multiple occasions, God has taken me up on this offer. It typically happens like this: I’m sleeping, I’m sleeping, I roll over and all the sudden the my eyes are open and my mind is starting to boot up. “I’m awake, it’s not the kids, I don’t need to use the potty, Becca’s sleeping soundly, I don’t hear anything, why am I awake? Oh yeah, I told God I would be an intercessor.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m reluctant, and I certainly have the option of going back to sleep and God won’t try to stop me, but on the other hand it feels good when you know you are being used by the Lord, even if the present does not. Kind of like exercising, I like the results of exercising, but I still don’t care for the discomfort of exercising

Sometimes I stay in bed, sometimes I get out of bed. Usually it’s very short. Sometimes I know exactly what I’m supposed to pray for, sometimes I have no idea. That’s when praying in the Spirit is important.

One night God must have thought I needed a little nudge, I’m sure he was right. I had been feeling good all day, but as the evening wore on, my back developed a knot in it. It felt like all of the muscles in my back were condensing into a single location in the right-middle of my back. This was before I started exercising so it wasn’t like I had just finished doing a bunch of pull ups or push ups. It was seriously affecting my sleep. I rolled and repositioned every way possible to get as comfortable as possible. Finally at 2am I postulated that maybe it was God trying to give me a hint. Since I couldn’t get comfortable anyway, I got down on the floor and began to pray. After about 5 minutes of prayer I sat up, and the pain was totally gone. It’s important to note that I wasn’t praying for myself here, I wasn’t praying for pain relief in my back, I was praying what God wanted me to pray. I stood up and stretched a little and I felt really good again. I went back to bed and slept like a baby the rest of the night.

I think God used this back pain for many purposes. First, it got my attention. Second, it was yet another way for God to confirm to me that he does want to use as intercessors to pray for others. And third that God does hear our prayers, and he is eager to bless us for coming to him in prayer.

This night-time intercessor thing doesn’t happen frequently, maybe it should and I’m just not in-tune or obedient enough to do it more often. But I’m very thankful for the experiences I’ve had when I am obedient to the call, and I hope I can continue to grow in this area of interceding for others and being sensitive to the leading of the Spirit.

-Nate