I stand there in the back of the sanctuary, patiently awaiting someone brave enough to ask for prayer. It can feel vulnerable. Wearing my green Prayer Team lanyard, I smile and make eye contact, trying to appear welcoming. 

Then someone takes the risk. She approaches and shares the exhaustion and complicated concerns within her situation. As I pray for her, I start crying. Being only five months postpartum, I briefly wonder if it’s hormones or just my emotionally expressive personality. We say “amen” and I wipe my eyes, slightly embarrassed. 

A week passes. I pray once for her concerns, when it comes to mind. 

Then we’re back at church and I’m serving communion. As people approach to take the bread, I say to each one, “the body of Christ broken for you.” And then she comes through my line. Immediately, tears spring to my eyes. I can barely get the words out. 

And that’s when I realize it. 

The tears when we were praying weren’t just me being empathetic. God is giving me an intercessory burden. 

…

What is an intercessory burden?

Maybe you’ve heard someone say, “God put it on my heart to pray for …” This could be an example of an intercessory burden. In its light form, one might call it a prayer prompt from God. In my own experience, that feels a little watered down. Burden feels like a pretty apt description for most of the promptings I notice. An intercessory burden is when the Holy Spirit urges you to join Him in the spiritual battle for someone. He’s in the midst of the fight and telling us to get on our knees and join the fray. 

Usually, these burdens come at crucial time-sensitive moments in others’ lives. Someone is really in the thick of it, needing wisdom or protection. Or someone is about to enter into a hard season, and God is trying to spiritually fortify them through the prayers of His people. 

For example, a few years ago, my husband was in a late night meeting. I decided to get in bed early that night. As I was reading a book, I suddenly felt like I needed to intercede. I checked my phone, wondering if he’d texted me. Seeing nothing, I just started praying. Later that night, we debriefed and discovered God had prompted me to pray at just the moment a conflict broke out at the meeting. 

Intercessory burdens can present in a lot of different forms. Sometimes that’s hearing a name or word from the Lord, experiencing sympathetic pains, having a poignant dream, or otherwise-unexplainable emotions. Personally, I have experienced them most often as unexplainable mood shifts and a heaviness in my chest. Then, I have to discern what’s going on. 

Why We Don’t Notice

The first time I realized I was receiving an intercessory burden, it took a week to understand what was happening! After college, I worked for a campus ministry called Greek InterVarsity. I served fraternity and sorority students, helping them encounter God and grow in Him. One of my students was preparing to sign a lease with her boyfriend. I was trying to figure out how to speak into the situation with truth, wisdom, and love. Every time I thought of her or the situation, I felt extremely stressed. It was so overwhelming that, as soon as work hours were over, I did my best to distract myself. I tried to watch tv or be with people. I assumed I was just experiencing my own stress in preparing for a conversation that might lead to conflict. 

A year or so earlier, someone had been practicing listening prayer on behalf of each member of my staff team. She shared with me that what she heard was that I had the spiritual gift of intercession. I didn’t grow up in a church that talked about spiritual gifts. I didn’t know much about intercession. And so I tucked it away, resolved to figure that out someday and just pray a lot in the meantime. 

Fast forward to the stress of the pending lease, and a week into it, it finally dawned on me that God wanted me to pray fervently for this student. I began to put pieces together. Maybe for people with the gift of intercession, I thought, this is how God prompts specific prayers. So I finally started praying intentionally for her and not just for what to say to her. And– shocker– the stress stopped overwhelming me. 

I didn’t notice God was urging me to pray for a variety of reasons: 

1) I didn’t know what an intercessory burden was so I didn’t know to look out for it.
2) I’m still growing in emotional health, and was certainly not emotionally mature at the time of this story, so it wasn’t odd to me that I would feel really stressed about a potential conflict. (Exhibit A on emotional immaturity: my instinct was to distract and ignore my unease.)
3) Even as someone who is now aware of intercessory burdens, my instinct is still not to look for a spiritual explanation for mood shifts. I look first to things I can see.

Intercessory Burdens vs. Intercessory Direction

I want to draw a distinction here that may not be crucial but I do think is helpful. Intercessory burdens are weighty and typically time-sensitive. They are an urging from the Holy Spirit to join in a current battle. In other words, it’s God-initiated.

Intercessory direction is a little different. We can ask for direction from God and others. This more often seems to be a way to participate in the slow growth of people. Rather than a time-sensitive battle, it’s like fertilizer for a plant. This is still a valuable and powerful way to participate in the Kingdom. And it will help people be stronger when they are in the midst of battles later.

In the last year, I’ve begun privately practicing listening prayer on behalf of others in order to know how to pray for them. I may or may not ever share with them. In fact, when it’s me seeking intercessory direction from God (rather than God giving an intercessory burden) I rarely share it. As someone with the gift of intercession rather than prophecy, healing, or teaching, it seems to me that first and foremost, my job is just to do the hidden work of interceding. 

You can also ask people for prayer requests to gain intercessory direction. Being on the Prayer Team in my Church has been great for this. 

The Joy of Intercessory Burdens

If I’m honest, I don’t love receiving intercessory burdens. Engaging in the fervent prayer they require is usually exhausting. But one of the absolute delights that comes from receiving a burden is the chance to let someone know that, even if I don’t know the situation, God sees them and is asking people to join Him in interceding for them. Because often an intercessory burden doesn’t come with much context. It’s a name or meeting to pray for. But to say, “Hey, I’m not sure what you’re going through, but I wanted to let you know God made it clear I’m supposed to pray for you this week. He sees you and He’s with you” is such a beautiful picture of God’s love. He does see them-- and loves them enough to get other people involved!

…

After our Sunday service concludes, I approach her. I share with her that I’m pretty sure God is giving me an intercessory burden, telling me to pray for her. So I let her know I’m going to be interceding for her throughout the week, and I ask her if she has any specific things I can pray for. Along with her requests, she shares how seen she feels by God in this moment. And I’m so grateful I get to do this Kingdom work.