Prayer Burdens

There is a "Prayer Field" in the Spirit where we carry specific "burdens" given by the Spirit of God to us individually for a specific purpose. The proof that these are from the Spirit is demonstrated by the way these prayer burdens drive us to prayer and intercession again and again often with tears and deep emotion. It is almost as if the Spirit of God takes us over in our intercession.

Years ago in the early years of leading churches, I found myself consumed praying earnestly for a woman of about my age who I had not met or spoken to for years. I had heard some news about her and feared that she had given up walking with Christ. I began to find myself deeply moved in prayer for her even though I knew nothing about her circumstances and understood that she was living in a different country. I found that from time to time the Spirit would move me to pray exceptionally deeply for her.

After some years in a completely unexpected conversation, a friend happened to mention the woman’s name. I asked about her and was completely astonished to learn that she had been selected for ordination and was now serving Christ as an ordained Anglican priest. At that very moment the "burden" lifted from me and I never felt it again.

The Spirit of God had led me to intercede for her very deeply with tears even though I did not know the specifics of her situation or what God wanted to do in her life. (Very strangely I never met her again even to tell her what had happened, and a number of years later she died and went to be with the Lord.)

Paul was given a specific prayer burden for his own people to receive Christ. The burden was so strong that he carried unceasing anguish in his heart even to the point that he wished he could go to hell so that they could go to Heaven! (What an astonishing demonstration of what happens when the Holy Spirit pours the Love of God into our hearts!)

Sometimes these "prayer burdens" from the Spirit are instantaneous and you have to stop what you are doing and pray for someone right then and there! The Spirit may wake you in the night to cry out for someone. Often in the days and weeks afterwards, you learn that the person was in a crisis, or facing an important decision, right then in that very moment when the Spirit urged you to intercede for them.

Other times the "prayer burden" lasts for years. Paul seems to be describing something like this when he writes how "The Spirit himself intercedes for us through groans that words cannot express" (Romans 8:26).