Friday, July 22, 2005

Intercessory Prayer

Someone has defined intercessory prayer as "love on its knees in prayer for others."
In thinking more about our practice of this Christian act, I think perhaps we need to be more disciplined in our intercessory prayers and not make them what Tony Campolo has called "laundry lists." I think we need to be more thoughtful about what is included on our lists, and to be more intentional about praying for these things more than once. I appreciate the "refrigerator list" in the Otter church bulletin which I can cut out and post on my frig so that when I open the door, I see the names of these special people.

As Peter Marshall once prayed: "O, God, forgive the poverty and pettiness of our prayers. Listen not to our words, but to the yearnings of our hearts. Hear beneath our petitions the crying of our need."

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