Intercession

The New York Time’s ethicist received the following from an anonymous reader:

I have an 85-year-old neighbor who is a sweet friend and caring person. My issue is that she is very religious and I’m not at all. She prays for me and says it in person, texts, and emails for even the most minor of situations. I’ve told her my view of religion and that she doesn’t need to pray for me. She said she has to, otherwise she’s not following the Bible. I’m trying to ignore this but it’s really bothering me that she can’t respect my wishes.

“The Ethicist” responded:

I’m glad that you’ve been honest with each other about your very different views concerning prayer. But… if you don’t think these prayers will do you any good, you presumably also don’t think they’ll do you any harm. By contrast, she thinks that you’ll be worse off without them, and that praying for you is her duty.

The only reason you give for objecting to her prayers is that she has failed to comply with your wishes. Yet I don’t find that she has thereby treated you with disrespect… So, you’re not entitled to insist that she stop including you in her prayers. What you can fairly ask is simply that she refrain from informing you about them. Still, instead of requiring that your octogenarian neighbor change her ways, I wonder whether you might change yours — and learn to accept this woman for who she is, hearing her prayers as a sincere expression of her loving feelings toward you.

In an issue of CT magazine, E.F. Gregory shares the following story of how a persecuted pastor in China prayed for her during the devastating fires in Southern California:

On January 7, 2025, a series of devastating wildfires erupted in the Los Angeles area. As I drove home to Alhambra, strong winds and sirens filled the air, and flames were visible in the mountains. As I drove, strong winds threatened to push my car to the curb. Broken tree branches littered the streets. The Eaton Fire was igniting near Altadena, a suburb north of my location. The community of Altadena would soon be severely affected by the fire.

The Los Angeles wildfires were catastrophic, killing at least 29 people, destroying nearly 17,000 structures, and displacing over 100,000 individuals. The sheer scale of the disaster is overwhelming, making it difficult to know how to respond.

A phone call with Pastor Zhang from eastern China offered a different perspective. While facing persecution and challenges in his ministry, Zhang relies heavily on prayer and a network of believers. When he learned about the fires near my home, he prayed for my family and our community.

Zhang’s thoughtful, empathetic questions surprised me. After all, we were meeting to talk about how he felt to know that Christians outside of China are interceding for his community. Instead, Zhang was remembering and praying for me.

Zhang's empathy was striking, especially given the isolation Chinese Christians often feel from the global Christian community. He emphasized that prayer unites believers across distances and cultures. "We pray for all parts of the world," he said, including the California fires, asking for God's mercy and grace. For Zhang, the fires were an opportunity to connect the struggles of his church with those of mine.

Recent years have been particularly challenging for Chinese Christians due to increased persecution. Zhang said, “In the latter half of the last century, the Chinese church was like an orphan, separated from the family of the universal church.”

Despite these challenges, Zhang believes prayer is a mutual act that strengthens relationships between believers worldwide. Zhang prayed that the disaster in Los Angeles would bring American Christians together to demonstrate God's care for the affected communities.

As we grieve our losses, I’m comforted and humbled to know that the persecuted church is interceding on our behalf. This is why I believe that praying for the church in China is more important than ever. When they suffer, I also suffer. But prayer does not move in only one direction. If I focus only on caring for my Chinese brothers and sisters without allowing them to care for me, we are not in real relationship. We need to pray for one another.

A recent survey asked Americans what they pray for and where do they pray? The replies showed that they pray for:

Families (51%)

Friends (41%)

Spouses (31%)

They pray before:

Job interviews (20%)

Exams (18%)

Sporting events (12%)

But in this survey sample of nearly 2,000 Americans found that few pray in church. The most common places people pray in the United States:

Work 24%

Nature 26%

Church 28%

Car 37%

Bedroom 51%

Former abortion doctor Patti Giebenk tells the following story about the woman who prayed her into a lifechanging encounter with Jesus:

During my lengthy conversion from pro-choice to pro-life, there was a person who prayed for me repeatedly. She was a prayer warrior I’d never met, but God heard her special prayer for me. It was the prayer of Sister Josita. Throughout her life, Sister Josita advocated for the poor, the refugee, and the vulnerable.

After Sister Josita heard that Dr. Giebink did abortions, she started praying for her—for over ten years. Then Dr. Giebink met Christ and stopped doing abortions. She joined a local church in South Dakota, and started treating poor women around the globe, but no longer doing abortions. After returning from one of her many trips to, she received the following letter:

Dear Doctor Giebink,

May your Christmas be blessed and the New Year filled with joy.

You don’t know me ... I want to thank you for your courage to speak out for life, and ... to bring an end to abortion. When I saw you on television, I was so proud of you to publicly state that you used to perform abortions for Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls and now you support life instead. When I first heard that you were performing abortions, I began lifting you up in prayer. I do not believe abortion is right, or a solution to an unwanted pregnancy. I have prayed for you, by name, that one day your heart would be touched, and you would discontinue performing abortions. I thank God for you, and I continue to pray for you.

Patti Giebink concludes this story with the following words:

Sister Josita still prays for me. We write regularly, and I’ve visited her twice. She turned ninety this year, and she’s still a vibrant and dynamic warrior. Her initial intervention for me—just a name and a face—moved celestial mountains, making way for my future legacy of life. May we all stay on our knees until the answer comes, just as Sister Josita did.

We may sometimes toss around the expression "faith like a child." Maybe we should ask South Carolina toddler Sutton Whitt what she thinks of that phrase. Sutton's parents put her to bed without saying bedtime prayers with her first. There was a championship football game on, and they were in a bit of a hurry to say goodnight and get back to the TV.

So, what did Sutton do? She said her prayers herself. Sutton's mom told CNN that she and her husband "started hearing noises upstairs," so they turned on the baby monitor to discover Sutton praying and thanking God for all sorts of people: grandparents, parents, Santa Claus. Her prayer closed "with a resounding 'Amen.'" It's a beautiful example of how "to give thanks in all things."

You can watch the video here.

A teen was a little mystified when he learned about the “Ding Dong Dash” student group activity at his church. With the after-hours stealth, catching homeowners unaware, and the anonymous nature of it all, Clifton Punter said he wasn't so sure about the ministry's concept.

Then Punter participated in Ding Dong Prayer Dash at St. Matthew's United Methodist Church, and he understood everything. Ding Dong Prayer Dash is a twist on "Ding Dong Ditch," a familiar children's prank involving ringing someone's doorbell and running away before it's answered.

Thus, on a recent Wednesday night, Punter and other members of the church's student group formed a circle on the lawn of a homebound church member. A nearby porchlight provided a warm glow as he led them in a prayer for the church member then hung a special door sign featuring a hopeful message on the member's front door.

Riinnnggg! Punter rang the doorbell and he and others in the student group quickly walked back to two waiting vans. And on they drove to another house to offer up another prayer for fellow church members who are generally homebound.

Punter said of the prayer activity, "When I first heard about it, it seemed a little weird. You're ringing someone's doorbell and then running away but then I realized it makes people smile because we leave them a gift basket or we leave them a note. It lets them know somebody's thinking about them.”

Jayna Sims was a recent recipient of the group's Ding Dong Prayer Dash. She was on the student's list because of the death of her father. She said the student group visited her dad earlier in the year and brought him some goodies. Sims says,

It means a lot to me—I've had a rough year. I took care of my dad this last year and along with COVID, my immune system is bad so I've been trapped at home for two years. Having them stop by every once in a while, that means a lot, it really means a lot. … my church family is still my church family, even though I can't go every week.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June of 2022, that a Bremerton, Wash., high-school football coach was improperly fired for praying with his players after games. That was only the most recent of high court cases involving the question of when prayer on public grounds is and isn’t permissible. Americans, especially American liberals, have been obsessed with the question for more than 60 years.

The idea that prayer is improper at big-time sporting events was forgotten one Monday night, (January 2, 2023). It happened nine minutes into the game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. Bills safety Damar Hamlin, after a routine tackle, stood up and then collapsed. Minutes later, emergency medical staff delivered cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The game was suspended, and suddenly prayer was back on the list of things anybody could talk about or do on camera.

Paycor Stadium, where the Bengals play, is owned by Hamilton County; it’s public property. But no one, so far as I am aware, raised any objection to the midfield prayers offered up that Monday night. That is because the fall of Damar Hamlin demanded a religious response. The ominous way in which the lithe 24-year-old dropped to the turf—not slumping down but falling backward—visibly shocked nearby players and appalled viewers.

Any legal or cultural prohibitions attaching to sporting-event prayers were rescinded. Players knelt, many plainly in prayer. Commentators, rightly sensing the need to go beyond conventional references to “thoughts,” spoke repeatedly of “prayers.” A Bengals fan held up a hastily made placard bearing the words “Pray for Buffalo #3 Hamlin.” Fans from both teams gathered outside the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, to which Mr. Hamlin had been taken, and collectively prayed for the young man.

Suddenly prayer—the ancient activity of speaking to God in the belief that he can hear and respond—was everywhere. Top-level coaches and players, former and present, posted appeals to “Pray for Damar.” Former quarterback Dan Orlovsky, discussing the game with two panelists on ESPN, did the until-now unthinkable: He bowed his head and actually prayed—with two other commentators. The prayer concluded, each said “Amen,” and you felt they meant it.

There is something natural and beautiful in the desire to entreat God to aid a gravely injured man. News reports on Thursday (January 5, 2023) indicate that Mr. Hamlin, against every expectation, is cognizant and able to communicate. Not everyone is surprised.

In his book The Life We’re Looking For, author Andy Crouch relates the following spiritual prayer experience. While stuck in Chicago’s O’Hare airport on a cold winter night, he needed some exercise, so he tried the following prayer walk experiment:

As I walked, I decided, I would try to take note of each person I passed. I would pay as much attention to each of them as I could … and say to myself as I saw each one, image bearer. I passed a weary looking man in a suit. Image bearer. Right behind him was a woman in a sari. Image bearer. A mother pushed a stroller with a young baby; a young man, presumably the baby’s father, walked next to her, half holding, half dragging a toddler by the hand. Image bearer, image bearer, image bearer, image bearer. A ramp worker walked by in a bulky coat and safety vest. Image bearer.

By the time I reached the corridor where Terminal 1 connects to Terminal 2, I had passed perhaps 200 people, glancing at their faces just long enough to say to myself, image bearer. I had six more concourses to go. ... After about 45 minutes of walking—image bearer, image bearer, image bearer … I was at the most distant gates.

By the end of the walk … I had passed people in every stage of life and health, [many] national and ethnic backgrounds, some traveling together, most seemingly alone. The stories I would never learn behind each of those faces … the possibility and futility each one had no one and would know … carried an emotional and spiritual weight that I can still feel, years later. From time to time, I repeat this exercise on a city street, in a coffee shop, even driving on the highway with faces are just a blur behind a windshield. Image bearer, image bearer, image bearer. It never fails to move me.

In a review of Timothy Keller’s book, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, Jen Michel writes:

One summer, my husband and I wanted to teach one of our youngest sons, age 6, to ride his bike. His twin brother, Colin, had already mastered the skill and was nearly keeping up with his older brother. But despite our cajoling—“It’s fun to ride a bike!” Andrew could not see the merit of potentially skinning his knees, and our attempts ended in his vain tears.

Then suddenly, in early August our little boy outgrew his fears. Nearly instantaneously, the mechanics of balancing, steering, and simultaneously pedaling became almost easy. The fears and tears dissolved, and Andrew forgot that riding a bike had ever been hard.

When it comes to prayer, most of us feel clumsy. We don’t recall someone running alongside us, shouting instructions as we learned. Instead, most of us found our balance by a hodge-podge of imitation and experimentation. Once we’ve learned to ride a bike, we can be sure we’re doing it right. Can anything remotely similar be said about prayer?

In his book, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, Timothy Keller invites readers to systematically learn to pray. Keller asserts that prayer depends on both grace and effort. He gently reminds us, there are no perfect prayers or perfect pray-ers. He says, “All prayer is impure, corrupted by our ignorance and willful sin.” We should try and yet can fail at prayer—an encouraging piece of news, when we remember that grace is there to sustain us.

As Keller concedes, “[Sometimes] you won’t feel that you’re making any progress at all, [and fellowship with God] maybe episodic.” But when your prayers are lifted toward a God of grace, at just the unexpected moment, you find that you know how to pedal, and that you are headed toward home.

Ajanay Barnes and her roommate were craving ice cream one night, they used the grocery-shopping app Instacart to load up a basket at Walmart. They asked for strawberry shortcake ice cream. They received sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast rolls. After delivery, Instacart issued a refund. The breakfast rolls are uneaten in Ms. Barnes’s freezer. She said, “I was craving this one specific ice cream. I guess Walmart had other plans.”

Global supply chains are in turmoil and supermarket shelves are looking sparse. So, order packers are winging it. Roses swapped for bell peppers. A thermometer switched for mac and cheese. A rapid COVID test traded for Halls lozenges.

An Instacart spokeswoman said high demand and supply-chain issues have troubled many of its grocery partners. Instacart gives replacement recommendations, the spokeswoman said. Online shoppers have been left amused, puzzled, and annoyed. Rhett Mitter said, “As there’s been different supply-chain issues and shortages, you notice some weird, weird substitutions.”

Mr. Mitter said he needed horseradish to make a sauce for shrimp with his wife, Jenna. Despite ordering it from Whole Foods, the product wasn’t available. The substitute delivered? Beets. She said, “We joked about it. You can’t make cocktail sauce with Ketchup and beets.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Delivery services are making some off-the-wall substitutions. But God never substitutes inferior products in answer to our prayer requests and there is never any supply issues with God. “If his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? (Matt 7:7-11; Luke 11:11-13). If God does substitute it is for our good and “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20).

Author Skye Jethani tells the story of how Billy Graham modeled praying continually:

In 1982, the Today show in New York City scheduled an interview with Reverend Billy Graham. When he arrived at the studio, one of the program’s producers informed Graham’s assistant that a private room had been set aside for the reverend for prayer before the broadcast.

The assistant thanked the producer for the thoughtful gesture, but told him that Mr. Graham would not need the room. The producer was a bit shocked that a world-famous Christian leader would not wish to pray before being interviewed on live national television.

Graham’s assistant responded, “Mr. Graham started praying when he got up this morning, he prayed while eating breakfast, he prayed on the way over in the car, and he’ll probably be praying all the way through the interview.”

During his days as President, Thomas Jefferson and a group of his companions were traveling across the country on horseback and they came upon this flooded river which had washed the bridge away. Each rider was forced to ford the river on horseback, fighting against deadly currents.

One traveler, not part of the group, was watching from a distance. After seeing several people cross the river safely, the stranger wandered up to the President, tapped his boot, and said, “Can I have a ride across the river?” President Jefferson agreed with hesitation and the man climbed onto Jefferson’s horse and the two of them made it safely to the other side.

As the stranger slid off the back of the horse to dry ground, a man in the group looked at him with incredulity, and said, “Why on earth would you ask the President of the United States for a ride across the river? Why didn’t you ask one of us?” And the man was shocked, and said, “I had no idea that he was the President of the United States. All I knew is that written upon some of your faces was the word ‘no’, but written upon his face was the word ‘yes’ – and I needed a ‘yes’ face today.”

In August, the world lost an iconic figure of film and stage. Chadwick Boseman, best known as king T’Challa from Marvel’s Black Panther, died from complications of colon cancer at 43. Because of his quiet and generous nature and the privacy with which he battled his sickness, Boseman’s death reverberated not only across the entertainment community, but throughout the world.

As the tributes continued to roll in from a variety of high-profile Hollywood figures, actor Sienna Miller added her own to the mix. Miller co-starred with Boseman in the action-thriller 21 Bridges, but she says she only ended up in the film because of his generosity.

Miller said, "So, he approached me to do it and it was at a time when I really didn't want to work anymore. I'd been working non-stop and I was exhausted … but I wanted to work with him." She added that she would only do the film “if I were compensated in the right way.” After contacting the studio, however, they balked at the number she had in mind. Apparently, they didn’t think she was worth that much. But Boseman used his leverage to ensure her participation, donating a portion of his salary to ensure she could receive fair pay.

The move surprised Miller greatly.

That kind of thing just doesn't happen. He said, “You're getting paid what you deserve, and what you're worth.” … In the aftermath of this I've told other male actor friends of mine that story and they all go very, very quiet and go home and probably have to sit and think about things for a while.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As Christians, we are instructed to go out of our way to show generosity and respect, especially to those with less power or privilege. This is the way that we stand apart from the crowd.

Luke Winkie writes on Vox.com:

Jen Glantz is there for women on the biggest day of their lives—for about $2,000 a wedding. The 31-year-old entrepreneur has been a professional bridesmaid since 2015, working dozens of ceremonies each year around the country. She's a dear friend for a day, not a wedding planner. Glantz says, “I'm not going to be able to pick your flowers or taste your cake with you.” Instead, she specializes in energizing the dance floor, distracting problem relatives, and above all, comforting the bride. “You're running around putting fires out. You'll clock 30,000 steps in one wedding.” Some clients have suffered a recent falling-out with a bridesmaid and need a quick fill-in, while others just don't have enough close friends.

About three-quarters of the time, brides ask Glantz to make up a fake name and backstory—she usually claims to be a friend from some obscure hobby. Glantz launched her company, Bridesmaid for Hire, in 2015 after serving as a civilian bridesmaid in her 20s for numerous friends. “That got me thinking that if I could do this for friends, I could do it for the wedding industry.” She now has a team of pro bridesmaids but rejects any applicants who emphasize how much they love to party. Glantz says of the job, “It's not a party, it's an emotional roller coaster.”

Good vibes have abounded over a viral video of two high school football players kneeling in prayer after the game. And while football players praying isn’t quite as novel a sight as it used to be, the jerseys told the story. Instead of teammates, the two young men had been opponents on the field.

Wide receiver Gage Smith had just led Sherman High School to a rousing victory over Mesquite West. But afterward, he knelt to pray with Mesquite’s Ty Jordan, whose mother was battling cancer. The two opponents had known each other from having played on a select 7-on-7 squad, and the final score was the last thing on either of their minds.

Smith said, “When you're playing the game, you're playing to win, and the other team is the enemy. But afterward, you still have respect for the other opponent. Football brings people together in so many different ways, and that was just one example of it that night.”

Possible Preaching Angle: We embody the love of Jesus when we can overlook petty differences to serve each other in times of need.

In the mid-1800s working as a seaman in Great Britain was a dangerous job. Shady ship owners tried to maximize profits by overloading their ships. These ships often sank in bad weather, allowing the ship owners to make an even greater profit on the over-insured ships. In the year 1873-74 around the coastline of the United Kingdom 411 ships sank and 506 people died. Overloading and poor repair made some ships so dangerous that they became known as “coffin ships.” Sailors refused to go board these “coffin ships” and were often imprisoned for desertion. Between 1870 and 1872 alone, 1,628 sailors were incarcerated for this "crime."

Then in 1868 a young British politician named Samuel Plimsoll applied his biblical faith to a current injustice. Plimsoll announced that he would “do all in his power to put an end to the unseaworthy ships owned by the greedy and the unscrupulous.” As a member of the House of Commons he tried to have a law passed, but ship-owning politicians and their ship-owner cronies rejected the law. Then a massive storm wrecked 23 ships, leaving 70 seaman and six rescuers dead. Onlookers clustered on the pier in despair as vessel after vessel foundered.

With the public’s new attention on the injustice of ship overloading, Plimsoll fought to promote the cause. He displayed sailors' grieving widows in public and distributing 600,000 copies of a book exposing the vile practices of the ship owners.

Finally, under his leadership, Parliament passed the 1875 Merchant Shipping Act which marked the beginning of the end for “coffin ships.” From then on, and to this day, vessels had to display the Plimsoll Mark, a loadline, painted clearly on their hulls, showing how deep they could safely sit in the water and prevent overloading. The new practice saved thousands of lives of seaman who were caught in an unjust situation.

During the 2018 Soccer World Cup in Russia there was a dramatic spike in the use of Google Translate. Fans needed to strike up conversations with their hosts and fellow fans from around the world. The words for "stadium" and "beer" were in particularly high demand. These days the traditional phrasebook is on the way out. A recent survey found that nearly two-thirds of 16 to 34-year-olds now rely on translation apps to help navigate the local lingo.

But while such apps are getting better, they're still not totally reliable. One-fifth of those surveyed said they experienced misunderstandings while on vacation because of mistranslations on their phone.

People noticed that Google Translate was often throwing up mangled or silly sentences. For example, Welsh people have noticed some particularly "scummy" translations. A warning sign reading "Blasting in Progress" was rendered as "Workers Exploding.”

A team of Microsoft researchers has started to make significant progress on translation work. But it’s still complicated. As one of the lead researchers noted, “Machine translation is much more complex than a pure pattern recognition task. People can use different words to express the exact same thing, but you cannot necessarily say which one is better.”

Possible Preaching Angles: Intercession; Prayer – If we have trouble communicating with other humans, how can we ever hope to express our thoughts and needs to the infinite God? This is where we depend on our infallible “translator,” the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:26) and Jesus our great high priest (Heb. 4:13-16).

As is her role as police dispatcher and call-taker, Antonia Bundy answered the call and rendered help where it was needed. But her caller presented an unusual request.

“You had a bad day at school?” she asked the young boy on the line. “Yeah, I just called to tell you that.”

Nine times out of ten, such an admission might be met with a scolding for wasting police resources. But for Bundy, something seemed different enough to take a different tack.

''When he told me he was having a bad day and I asked him what was troubling him he told me that he had homework," Bundy explained in a local TV interview. "And at that point, I was able to determine that it was more of a 'I need help with homework' than an actual emergency."

Fortunately, Bundy was cheerfully up-to-the-task. "I've always been good at math. All the way through high school I enjoyed it. So it was something I was very happy I could help him with." Bundy walked him through an arithmetic problem, calling it a nice break in her busy day.

As it turns out, her decision not to scold the child paid off, as he seemed to be aware that his problem did not qualify as an emergency.

"I'm sorry for calling you,” he said. “But I really needed help."

Bundy’s response?

"You're fine. We're always here to help."

Potential Preaching Angles:

No request is too small for God, and if we are God’s creation, God will take care of us, so let’s have the boldness of children and ask God for what we need.

David Fitch shares how the prayers of a church vanquished Satan's grip on a neighborhood:

In 2010 a group of eight people from two churches felt called to the Detroit Boulevard neighborhood of Sacramento. It was known as one of the most notorious crime-ridden neighborhoods in all of Sacramento. Each house in that neighborhood was a place of danger. Nonetheless this group of eight decided to walk through the neighborhood praying over each home and praying for the presence of Christ to reign over violence, addiction, and satanic oppression. They began walking through the neighborhood, praying over each home and rebuking the demonic strongholds of addiction and violence.

One of the eight, former Sacramento police officer and gang detective Michael Xiong, reported that "each time we prayed over the houses, we felt the weight of oppression becoming lighter." A woman from one of the houses confronted them. When she discovered they were praying for the community, she asked for healing, and God healed her.

The group soon physically moved into the neighborhood and started what they called Detroit Life Church. A couple years later a local newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, reported that there were no homicides, robberies, or sex crimes, and only one assault in Detroit Boulevard between 2013 and 2014. Detroit Boulevard had been transformed by a small group of people who began their ministry in the neighborhood by praying around houses, streets, and parks for the power of Satan to be vanquished. Kingdom prayer in body is what it means to be faithfully present to his presence in the world.