Lord Jesus and Holy Father in Heaven, holy and glorified is your name. Let Your will be done first and foremost in everything I think, say and do. May my words be pleasant to your ears.

I prayed for the gift of being a prayer warrior for those needing prayer. During the recent the illness of some of our elders, I remembered how important it is to have someone praying on my behalf then realized that generation is passing on to Heaven with few to serve in their place.

Prayers from others have been so effective in my life that I feel responsible to carry on the battle for our children and their generation. That requires some life lessons that I didn't understand at the time but I believe God is perfectly good and He knows what is best for me. I also believe that He answers prayers with his intended will. I do not have to ask if praying for someone else is in His will so I should expect God to answer this prayer. It is a command directly given in 1 Timothy 2:1 "First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people..."

A prayer warrior must have a point of reference from which to empathize, if not sympathize, with the subject of the prayer. What I am finding is that the pain may have to be lived through in order to experience the deepest levels of prayer need. Watchman Nee mentioned something like this in his book Release of the Spirit as he talked about the ability for someone who has a broken spirit and recovered from a sin to recognize that same sinful weakness in someone else. It is as if once you see it in your mirror, it becomes even more recognizable in someone else's face. Because I have experienced it, I can now recognize the symptoms, the circumstances, and the pains of others who are experiencing the same thing.

When a prayer warrior goes before the throne of God with a request for someone, few things are as impactful as the awareness of their own testimony. My personal testimony of how I am suffering through a trial, or how I have suffered through a trial in the past, brings my desire for grace and mercy to priority. 

When I think of how I want someone to pray for me, I want them to be sincere and full of energetic commitment to my well being. As I wish that emotion for me, I need to express the same for others. As the bible says in the Golden Rule, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12 ESV). My prayer is energized with true sympathy when I have personally felt the discomfort, hurt, pain, suffering, loss, fear, depravity, confusion, or whatever the issue. This doesn't mean that I cannot pray for a situation that I have not encountered personally. It only strengthens the resilience in my prayer. I am more likely to continue this prayer through to its completion if I have had a personal testimony of experience.

To wrap this up, I am trusting God to carry me through whatever my trials are this week. I am trusting that my painful experiences in life are being allowed to try my faith and make it stronger so I can continue on as a prayer warrior; a witness to the goodness of our Holy God and the glory of the Risen Christ Jesus. If it is not for that purpose, then in my physical death, I will be at home with my true Father in Heaven and even that will be to my greatest benefit. In the end, God works all things for the good of those who believe.

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