I need your help

Have you ever heard a two year old say, “I do it myself!”?

I have been like that most of my life. I like to think I am self sufficient. Not only that, I don’t like to ask for help. I Love to give it, but don’t like to ask for it.

But I have found that there are times when I am not self sufficient, I can’t do some thing alone and I have to go first to my God and then to my friends for help.

Today, I need you. I need everyone I know who can pray, to help me pray today. But not for me. I need you to help me pray for my girl.

As many of you know, last week my youngest daughter Cari woke up on Wednesday in severe pain in her neck. It continued for three days and spread to other joints in her body.

On Friday she went to the doctor and they did some testing to see if she has rheumatoid arthritis. Until those tests return, they began treatment for it. It has been helpful to her, she was able to walk yesterday without a lot of support. Thank God for medicine.

In the next few days, she will be getting the results of those tests. That is where I need you. She is only thirty one years old and I don’t want her to have to suffer with RA for the rest of her life. It is a disease that cannot be cured, is painful and can be debilitating.

So this morning when I woke up with an aching heart for her I decided I would call on all of you to join me in prayer for her today. I wanted you to join me in asking God to heal her, to make it all go away or to give it to me instead; because I don’t want my girl to have to deal with this. I was going to ask you to join me in being an intercessor for her.

Then it seemed like God said, “wait, and know what you are asking for before you ask.”

And of course I had to reply to him, “But God………”

So after spending some time arguing with Him, I am hesitant to ask for intercessory prayer (see below). But I am asking you to join me in praying that God will give Cari peace. Pray that if God has something for her or those of us who love her to learn through this, we will be open to that. She has always been strong in her faith so I am asking you today to pray that no matter what the future holds, she will KNOW that God will be with her every step of the way.

 Isaiah 43:2 tells us this: “When we pass through the water, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”

Cari, this the promise I will cling to for you today.

“An intercessory prayer is a prayer prayed on behalf of someone else. Our devotional today from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for his Highest, gives us a stern warning that we should not idly take on the responsibility of interceding on someone else’s behalf. When we pray an intercessory prayer we need to be careful. We are putting ourselves not in their place, but in God’s place:
 

You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption. Instead, you will simply be turning intercession into useless sympathy for others. True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God, until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance. Intercession means to “fill up . . . [with] what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians 1:24), and this is precisely why there are so few intercessors. People describe intercession by saying, “It is putting yourself in someone else’s place.” That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God’s place; it is having His mind and His perspective.

What we must avoid in intercession is praying for someone to be simply “patched up.” We must pray that person completely through into contact with the very life of God. Think of the number of people God has brought across our path, only to see us drop them! When we pray on the basis of redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer”.

PS: see post: Answers to Prayer