From a Trickle to Downstream Flow - Church Prayer Leaders Network

Entrusting Intercession Results to God

By Sandy Mayle

The Allegheny River ran through my childhood world.

As I splashed about in it, camped beside it, and kayaked on it, I didn’t know that the Allegheny starts as a small spring in a farmer’s field in northern Pennsylvania. A trickle widens until fishermen pull muskies from the depths, speedboats skim the surface, loaded barges inch along, and people are even baptized in its waters.

The Allegheny flows into the Monongahela, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico.

I wonder. Does that northern Pennsylvania field have any idea what is happening downstream?

Starting with a Trickle

In Ezekiel 47, God shows the prophet a vision of the temple in Jerusalem. He follows a trickle of water coming from under the temple wall, which grows ankle-deep, then knee-deep, then waist-deep, until that trickle has become an uncrossable river. Although it flows through desert land, the river nurtures many trees along its shores, including all kinds of fruittrees bearing nourishing fruit and healing leaves. It eventually flows into the salty Dead Sea, turning the waters fresh so that they become filled with many kinds of fish, for “where the river flows everything will live” (v. 9).

Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection became a spring of Living Water that flowed first as a trickle at Pentecost in Jerusalem, then knee-deep through Judea, waist-deep through Samaria, finally widening to cover the whole earth (Acts 1:8).

This same Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me . . . rivers of living water will flow from within them. By this he meant the Spirit” (John 7:38–39).

Every true believer in Jesus Christ becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16). And in that temple we are urged to pray, to join with the powerful yearnings of the Spirit, the pleadings of the Savior, and the intercessions of the Church, so that a river of life flows into our families, our neighborhoods, our nation, and on into the Dead Sea of our world.

This is the outflow of “prayer in the Spirit,” or prayer that joins with Him. Paul wrote, “Pray in the Spirit on all occasionswith all kinds of prayers and requests” (Eph. 6:18). This is not prayer that lobbies for what seems right, what seems obvious, or what seems the best conceivable path forward. It is prayer that seeks God’s purposes.

Praying in the Spirit

How can we pray in the Spirit?

1. Wait on Him, setting personal agendas aside. Ask and allow the Spirit to attune our hearts with the Father’s. As much as possible, we let Him birth His prayers in us.

2. Offer prayer, then, for what we understand to be in line with these biblical criteria:

• the plan of the Father: “If we ask anything according to His will, [that is, consistent with His plan and purpose]He hears us” (1 John 5:14, amp).

• the interests of the Son: “Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand ofGod and is also interceding for us” (Rom. 8:34).

• the yearning of God’s Spirit: “The Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads on our behalf withunspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance” (Rom. 8:26, ampc).

3. Remain a farmer’s field. A plot of earth. A piece of clay.

It’s mind-blowing to be a place where God has brought water out of dry ground. But often we covet more. More involvement, more credit, more assurance of our prayers’ effectiveness. We want to factor significantly in the outcomes. However, if our prayer wasn’t our own effort and initiative, if He birthed it and breathed it, then all that happens as a result is all Him. It’s not our river; it’s totally God’s. He flows out; He swells and surges; He brings the dead to life and makes the living to bear fruit and causes that fruit to nourish and sustain others.

All the glory belongs to Him. All our self-effort to figure prominently in the answer, to peer downstream for results, or tounderstand God’s processes will muddy and pollute the waters with churning angst.

Struggling to See Downstream

The truth is, when we pray, we seldom find out what happens “downstream.” Oswald Chambers wrote in My Utmost for His Highest:

A river reaches places which its source never knows. And Jesus said that, if we have received His fullness, “rivers of living water” will flow out of us, reaching in blessing even “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8) regardless of how small the visible effects of our lives may appear to be.

We have nothing to do with the outflow—“This is the work of God, that you believe. . .” (John 6:29). God rarely allows a person to see how great a blessing he is to others.¹

This truth can create a significant struggle for pray-ers who have a strong faith in God and a committed prayer life, those who pray year after year but don’t see the results they’re looking for. I oftenwant to jump in a powerboat and checkout what’s happening—or not—downstream. How are things looking? Can I give a hand in any way? Pray longer? Harder? What more do I need to do?

When divorce ripped through our family and took with it a dear daughter-in-law, I had a hard time letting go. I struggled against the current for a long time, until I finally did what the Spirit had been nudging me to do. In my heart I put our daughter-in-law in a basket as if she were my little baby Moses, and committed her to the Lord’s keeping. Committedher to the flow. She is riding downstream, and I have no doubt the Lord is with her. Someday I know I will see how He’s been answering prayer.

Until then, however much I long to see the stream of my prayers mingle with those of the Trinity and the body of Christ—and watch that basket ride the current and navigate the rocks—this truth remains: I’m a farmer’s field. That’s my place. And that’s where I’m finding peace in intercession.

Riding the Current of His Purposes

None of us—pastor, prayer leader, or any praying believer—knows how our Spirit-birthed prayers will merge with His own powerful pleadings and Christ’s intercession to affect the Father’s far-reaching plans. We don’t know where the Spirit will bear our requests or how He will work far out of our sight and well beyond our reach.

It’s not our business to know; it’s His. Our task is to focus on being His temple, praying in the Spirit. It is enough to know that our prayer’s “labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58, emphasis mine), so “Let us not become weary in doing good” (Gal. 6:9).

One day we will see all that God has done downstream. In the meantime, the life-giving Spirit flows out of us, sweeping our prayers into the strong current of His purposes, soaking into dried land, filling abandoned hearts, buoying stranded hopes, spawning joy and life.

And we didn’t—we couldn’t—do anything to make it happen. We just welcomed the Holy Spirit of God and joined Him in prayer. Then, like a spring in a farmer’s field, out He flowed.

Downstream, on and on.

¹Oswald Chambers and James Reimann, My Utmost for His Highest: Updated Language (Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 2017), September 6 entry.

SANDY MAYLE is a freelance writer who has written for numerous publications, including past issues of Prayer Connect. She and her husband Dave are from Erie, PA.

Prayer Connect magazine, Issue 39