Circle Of Prayer


Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual
and the community must enter every day.
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

intercessory prayer finding solace

Before You Ask

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:7-8)

Many people think their prayers won’t work if they don’t utter them clearly enough, or fail to explain to God exactly what they mean, or don’t speak loudly enough to him with sufficient earnestness. But when this happens, prayer becomes so exaggerated that our Savior even forbids it.

Obviously Jesus does not want to discourage us from praying. His point is that when we pray we must have a sense of proportion. Once we have prayed, we must be quiet. We need to be like the farmer who has sown his seed. Help will come only when you are quiet in faith. Also in your sickness or with other needs, learn to be still and look to the Kingdom of God.

We can share our needs with the Father in a few words, without making a fuss, and rest assured that God already knows what we need and what he will do to help us. We don’t have to explain our requests in great detail to God, or try and make quite sure that he knows our needs. God knows about even the smallest matters and takes them straight into his heart. We can turn to him by glancing Heavenward, with no words at all. We can do this even when we pray about something concrete and tangible, or about something that specifically troubles us. We may realize that what we thought we needed is actually not necessary and that we can find a way right in the midst of how things are now.

This doesn’t mean that we just let things happen – as if everything will come of its own accord without our longing for it. Nor should we just cast a brief and hurried request at God’s feet. When this happens, we too easily lose sight of God, assume that everything comes to us without his help, and we forget to thank him. Then we cease to have a believing heart and are consequently not true children of God.

Jesus said, “Before you ask him.” Therefore we do need to make our requests known to him, otherwise many things will not be given that could have been given. It never displeases God when we come to him with our heartfelt requests. A real child asks for everything, knowing God has an ear for him. We should bring all our burdens and needs to him, for at the very least this helps to make us ever more aware that in all things God is the giver.

God always has our interest in mind. He carries our various needs with fatherly concern, eagerly waiting for us to come to him. He has not forgotten us. And when we feel tempted to think so, then all the more we should remember that he knows it all and cares for us. In fact, he knows much more about us and our needs than we do. Simple, childlike prayer is enough to move his heart, give you something out of the fullness of his compassion, and save you from all sorts of fear and trouble.

(Johann Christoph Blumhardt)

(The God Who Heals, Words of Hope for a Time of Sickness)


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Anonymous

I have had a very difficult bondage going on in my life for years. It started when I told on my mom for having an inappropriate relationship . My father used that information to viciously assault my mother. I did not know he was a wife beater and adulterer and that he hated his mother for her abuse of him. My mom had also been mistreating me. At some point, after this I was so overcome with grief and a sense of having been responsible for what happened. I very clearly heard a voice speaking to me as if beside me. It said that I was responsible for what had happened and that I had to pay for my mother's life being so miserable by agreeing to forfeit my own life and take on hers. I felt myself disappear into a kind of mystical closet. This incident was so traumatic that I had forgotten it and it existed only in pieces. But something clearly happened to me. It seems as if I believe that I didn't deserve to live, have any rights as a person or have a life of my own. It also seemed as if from that moment on that same voice was there to accuse me if I was being abused by someone or if I did something wrong so that my daily life was one of shame, misery and failure, torment etc. I seemed to develop some ocd as a result . I suffered more child abuse later on. It seems that there is something spiritual that functions in my life almost like a kind of malignant narcissism that never lets up. If I cannot escape this snare and odd as if sounds, side with myself instead of against myself, my life and current relationship will be destroyed. I already have two destroyed marriages as a result. Both marriages had abusive elements/coercive control in them but there was still my own side of what was going on. I am NOT able to beat this on my own despite trying many will power and faith type attempts. Please pray for me, for deliverance. It seems as if the heavens are brass and there is a lack of anyone who truly hears from God at least in my location. And I desperately need to hear from God.

I am also trying to sell a piece of property that has serious potential but some issues as well. If I do not sell this property soon I will be forced into bankruptcy. If anyone feels led to pray for that I would be thankful.

One last thing. I am in a relationship with a man who believes but needs to experience Jesus for Himself, as do I. The problems i have spiritually have created such distress in our relationship that its causing us to fall out of love and become cold and hard towards one another. Please pray for God to put our relationship to rights. He is perhaps the most loving man I have ever known but he is being hurt by these things as well as I am. Please pray for us and for our relationship to be healed and for us to experience God in a real way that boosts our faith. I do not want to have yet another broken relationship. Thank you anyone who prays.

Received: May 7, 2019

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