A Season of Shifting

When I think of authentic and deep intercessory prayer in any environment, it is my greatest desire for people to understand and experience the heart of God for other people. This encompasses His mercy, His compassion, His vision, and His justice for the world while both knowing and believing that God can do the impossible and wants to answer prayers of people that believe in Him.

I think this longing deeply stems from a place of personally being overcome with God's compassion and mercy for whatever He and I, both, desire to see come to pass with the lost, His people, and the world at large. When I am praying in alignment with the Spirit, I not only deeply encounter Him, but I am also fulfilling what I believe I have been called to do here on Earth for the rest of my life. It's beautiful. It's whimsical. It's supernatural. And it's unlike anything in this world.
 
It's the best thing ever.
 
Most people, myself included (many, many times), will avoid intercessory prayer or will try to pray for others and feel suffocated because they feel like they are lacking intimacy with the Father or even understanding on how to pray. I completely understand this thinking and the spiritual battle than can take place within it! And sometimes, God ceases intercession so that we can deeply reconnect with Him.
 
I think this is most of what our culture experiences in prayer, and what people have probably been experiencing for centuries. With showers of awakenings and revivals intermixed, generally a majority of the Church at large doesn't understand who God actually is, His love for them, and the power and authority that He has given each of His children. I believe that these faulty mindsets of God being distant, angry, aloof, and waiting to pour out His wrath is shifting. I also believe that the faulty mindsets that God is withholding justice, righteousness, and doesn't mind sin and ignores discipline in our lives is also dramatically shifting. I believe in the next coming years, the Church is walking towards a more holistic understanding of God as Jesus Christ revealed through the Holy Spirit. We begin to see Him rightly as we daily walk with Him throughout our lives, listening to His voice. 
 
I also believe that the Lord is shifting the Church to deeply know her authority in the world because of Jesus's death and resurrection and where she is seated currently; in heavenly places, above the war! Check out Ephesians to learn more about this specific call. So, as this shift takes place, I think the confusion of who God is and who we are called to be will begin to have less of a hold.
 
In this shift, we will be thrusted forward to keep going, to keep fighting, to keep asking, and His glory within us will be greater than anything we can imagine!
 
When we begin to understand who God is and who we are, rightly, then everything changes and suddenly we realize how powerful our voice and our prayers are in intercessory prayer. We begin to understand in our core that destinies, circumstances, injustices we see in the world, the spiritual atmosphere in environments, the state of people's minds and souls, can completely shift. We begin to see God's vision for individual's lives, for organization’s destinies- what God could do within them, and for every system/structure/city that man created! Yes, it is possible that God would take something that man created with or without Him, per-say, and completely shift its design, the fruit it produces, and the souls of people within through intercessory prayer!
 
I have seen and been a part of assignments where God will even send intercessors to certain places simply for the task of shifting the culture of the place through intercessory prayer. And God does it, even if it takes months, years, or decades! I have also been a part of gatherings of hundreds of kids and young adults alike and have seen God's Spirit move in power and in love because of continual petition and prayer. In my own life, I have seen God very tangibly break through fear, oppression, and division through both years and in singular moments of intercessory prayer.
 
There are no limits. My dream is for people to actually believe that there are no limits. I also desire to walk in that kind of faith for the rest of my life.
 
I think the sons and daughters of God at Wesley could experience this shift in knowing who God is and who they are, so that fear doesn't have the stronger word and freedom is the reality of life.
 
It is my dream to see people praying at Wesley, encountering and understanding the Lord's deep compassion for people outside of their own desires and dreams in their own life. It is my dream to see people weeping, crying out before God for revival. It is my dream to see them dancing and shouting for joy because of His Kingdom coming. It is my dream for each person to see the light, and believe it for every person that they know or come in contact with!
 
I am learning this kind of compassion, mercy, and faith myself in this season of intercession. I used to pray because I wanted something bad to leave; I wanted the negative feeling or what I saw that was wrong with a person or a body of people to be dismantled. Though the Lord used these outcries for change, I am learning now that He wants me to see His vision, to push past what is wrong or in the way, and deeply cry out for the promises of God that may feel less tangible but are actually true. It is never my destiny to crash under the weight of what I see and feel. My destiny it is to see and feel God's affection and reality instead.
 
In this process, I am truly becoming aligned with His faith. That simple alignment with Him fuels everything else in my life. His faith, His hope, and His love are all I truly need, especially when praying for the world to know and encounter Him.

Author | Emily Helton