Bridge Building

I love to pray. I pray for big things and small things. I prayed God would heal me of cancer, which He did, and I pray for good parking spaces when it’s raining. I pray for people I know and people I will never meet. I intercede. Intercession is standing between God and the person you are praying for, asking God to help them, heal them, or bless them. Abraham did this for Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:16-33). Moses did this for the Israelites when God wanted to wipe them out and start all over again with him (Exodus 32:9-10).

I have quiet time and a specific place where I love to bow before the Lord in prayer, but I always take my prayer habits wherever I go. During the last several months, my prayer life has increased, and not just because I work with Joanna in ministry. It has grown because I drive the interstate.

I pray for people who recklessly speed by me, people who are swerving, people in ambulances, police officers. I ask God to protect them, and sometimes I feel the need to pray for their salvation. I also pray for truckers. Did you know that a large percentage of human trafficking goes on at truck stops along the interstate? (NHT Truck Stops) Alabama has recently required student truck drivers to be taught about the signs of human trafficking and what to do if they encounter it. My prayer when I see trucks, especially those with sleepers, is “Be a protector, not a predator.” Will I ever know how those prayers are put into action? Probably not. But it is a prayer that comes from my heart, and I know God hears me.

Will I ever know how those prayers are put into action?

The first time I remember feeling an urgent need to intercede for someone I didn’t know was on a trip home from Mobile. I was driving across the General W.K. Wilson Jr. Bridge. Yes, I had to look up the official name because locals generally call it the Big Bridge or the Dolly Parton Bridge. (You can figure that out for yourself.) It is very tall, stretching more than six miles across the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. When it opened in the early 1980s, it was a welcome new shortcut between northern counties, Mobile, and I-10. Since then, it has become only more necessary and appreciated. I-65 is an evacuation route during hurricanes, and the bridge across the delta allows for quick exits inland.

A few years ago, a terrible accident and consequent fire caused both northbound lanes to be closed, and, for a while, the southbound span was converted to handle both north and southbound traffic. That was tight! I would suck my breath in like it was going to make my vehicle smaller as I threaded my way between concrete barriers and the walls of the bridge itself. Come to think of it, I have done a lot of praying on that bridge!

Back to my personal introduction to intercessory prayer. I was driving home after taking a college course, and there, on the side of the Big Bridge, was a man changing a flat tire. I shiver just thinking about it. There isn’t a lot of a safety margin there for vehicles in the emergency lane. And it was dark. And people were driving at interstate speeds. I felt heavily impressed to pray for this man, so I did. I called out to God, asking Him to protect the man, to make the tire changing easy, to allow the other drivers to see him and to be safe themselves. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I might have been the only one praying for this stranger, or I might have been one of several whom God prompted to pray for protection. Either way, that incident changed my view of prayer. I realized that prayer wasn’t just something I should do out of duty or routine or even for myself. Intercession is a way to give and to participate in the spiritual realm with God – being about Kingdom Business.

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people. 1 Timothy 2:1

Prayer, in itself, acts as a bridge. It allows us to communicate with God. We stand on one side, earthbound, lifting our praises and requests to God. He stands on the other side, waiting to hear our voices and the pleas of our hearts.

Have you built a bridge today with prayer? Have you petitioned God on someone else’s behalf? Be about the Father’s business. Follow the promptings of your heart to pray for family, for country, for churches. If someone randomly pops into your head, pray for them. You don’t have to know why. Take a little time and lift them to Heaven on your bridge. I pray that others will do the same for you.