Shore Up
Forgive me, but I am going to make this “all about me” for a minute. Today is a significant day for me. Launch Day. 7/16/2024. The day my book Troubleshooting Your Prayer Life: Connecting with God Through the Delays, Detours and Dead Ends is released. This is the fulfillment of many years of work. Years of wondering if this day would come to pass. Prayers and waiting. Encouragement and yes, delays, detours and dead ends just like in the subtitle.
A good friend asked me one time, “When did you start writing this book?” I quickly answered without thinking, “I think I started the day I prayed my first prayer.” It has taken a lifetime of victories and defeats to process with the Holy Spirit and hopefully put something out that can help the body of Christ.
Recently as I was pondering this with the Lord, I was asking him about why this was the time the book was being launched? I heard him say. “In this season, The intercessory army needs to be shored up.” This is not a phrase I use very often so I looked up the meaning. It means, to support, to reinforce or strengthen something to keep it from falling.
So I have been meditating on this for a couple of weeks.
Why would the prayer army need shoring up?
1. First let’s acknowledge we have been in an intense battle for our nation. In addition, many of us have been in personal battles over our family, finances or our health. I live in the only county in the nation with five military bases. Soldiers and airmen go on deployments and when they return, they are welcomed back and then they go through a period of reintegration. They take time to be restored, physically and emotionally. Their equipment is cleaned and restored. I am sure there are evaluations of strategies employed while on deployment. The prayer army, on the other hand, stays very faithful to their post and continues to war from their post with little time for reflection, restoration or course correction. It helps to remember this is a marathon, not a sprint. Even when the prophets say it will be an intense battle for the next 2 months, that doesn’t always mean the battle is over in 2 months. It may just mean the battle needs to be won in the next 2 months, so we are then ready for what comes next. We are living on a battlefield. It is vital we are diligent to keep ourselves pure and ready to war with our weapons clean and ready to be deployed.
2. Years ago, I heard Cindy Jacobs say, “We know we need to put on the full armor of God, but if we put the armor on over hearts that have holes in them, we can be defeated from the inside.” Those holes can come from friendly fire (when we are wounded by people on our side) or from battle wounds, but either way we can’t leave them to fester. We need to take the time to receive healing and deliverance from the Lord. Many times, this can be done in a place where the Holy Spirit guides us into truth. Sometimes we may need the help of a friend or counselor. Either way, it is part of the process of shoring up the intercessory army.
3. When in an intense battle the temptation is to pray the way we have always prayed. We can get in a rut and forget to inquire of the Lord like David did. Is this my battle? Is this the right time to take on this battle? What weapons should I use in the battle? In the prayer army the strategy can vary from worship, high praise, intercession, high level spiritual warfare, decrees and declaration and even rest. We need to make sure we don’t pray from a habitual place, but instead from a place of revelation.
I can’t see what the next 12 months hold. I know some prophets have shared some intense times are ahead. We need to deal with our wounds and disappointments. We need to be willing to look at what we say and what we pray. We need to search our hearts for hope deferred mentalities. We need to drop the plumbline of His Word into our prayer lives.
My prayer is that we will all pray, “Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10
Steadfast means firm in purpose, unwavering, firmly established. An online thesaurus says abiding is a synonym. I don’t know if it is a synonym, but I know it is a prerequisite. We won’t accomplish anything without coming from a place of abiding with the Lord. May all of our prayers and strategies come from a place of abiding with the Lord, so that we might be “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 15:58 NKJV)
This blog could be construed as a shameless plug for my book. Let me just say, you don’t need my book to make sure you are shored up, Holy Spirit can and will lead you. But please do everything you can to shore up your walk as an intercessor. If you need help, my book may be of help. Years ago, one of the first people to read the original manuscript, said, “This book should be required reading for every intercessor.” Maybe this is why it is being released today in this time when we all need to be “shored up.”
If you would like to purchase the book it can be found at https://a.co/d/8acVrz9