One of the Greatest Vocations We Have as Christians is a Humble Task Open to Everyone but Few Undertake

One of the greatest vocations we as Christians have is to pray for others. To pray for the many people who we know as well as for the many we don’t know but of whose suffering we are aware. My sense is that you will come closer to the Lord Jesus the more you pray for others, because Jesus came for others and praying for others is entering more deeply into the mystery of His divine intercession. There are so many people who need our prayers, and to take the time to lift them up to the Lord is one of the greatest services we can perform.

Maybe you can buy a notebook in which you can write down all the people for whom you want to pray. I am sure that book will fill up very soon, and you can take that book with you in your prayer and ask the Lord to touch all the people whose names you have brought together. Doing so, you certainly will experience more fully the love of Jesus.
Henri Nouwen in a letter to “Ruth” dated February 3, 1983, from Love, Henri: Letters on the Spiritual Life [affiliate link]

This isn’t a bad idea. Nouwen states further, “My conviction is that those who desire to come closer to the Lord will be richly rewarded. Be sure to ask the Lord to give you the gift of prayers. It is the greatest gift He wants to give.” In prayer, we commune with God. We experience further God’s companionship and presence. The reward Nouwen speaks of is God; God is our treasure, and we receive it by seeking after him. The desire to seek God is a gift. It is a gift extended to us and made sure in and through Jesus.

In Isaiah 33:5-6, the prophet writes:

The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high;
    he will fill Zion with his justice and righteousness.
He will be the sure foundation for your times,
    a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge;
    the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.

To the degree that we know the Lord, and to the degree that we seek fervently after God, the desire of our hearts should be that others would be blessed by Jesus, would come to know Jesus, and to receive from the Spirit access to salvation and wisdom and knowledge. We have been extended the invitation and privilege and opportunity to pray toward that very end. We have God’s ear. As intercessors, we are invited to bend it.

Waiting Differs from Doing Nothing

Waiting differs from “doing nothing.”

Waiting doesn’t always feel that way.

Waiting can be active, expectant, watchful, and patient.

Or waiting can be passive, unexpectant, lazy, and impatient.

Lamentation 3:5 says, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.”

Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”

Habbakuk 2:3 reminds us, “For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.”

Isaiah 30:18 says, “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”

These are all Old Testament references. Maybe the Hebrew people learned a thing or two about waiting.

James 5:7 says, “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.”

Romans 5:1-5 says,

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

In Luke 2:25 we read this about a man named Simeon, “Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.”

And Henri Nouwen writes:

Whenever there is a lack of clarity or ambiguous circumstances, it is time to wait. Active waiting is essential to the spiritual life. In our mostly active lives and fast-paced culture, waiting is not a popular pastime. It is not something we anticipate or experience with great joy. In fact, most of us consider it a wast of time. Perhaps this is because the culture in which we live is basically saying, “Get going! Do something! Show you are able to make a difference! Don’t just sit there and wait.” But the paradox of waiting is that it requires full attention to the present moment, with the expectation of what is to come and the patience to learn from the act of waiting.
Discernment, p. 150

As we wait, we pray. We’re active. Alert. Exercising faith, echoing the words of Psalm 39:7, which says, “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.”

Nouwen: Mysticism and Revolution

It is my growing conviction that in Jesus the mystical and the revolutionary ways are not opposites, but two sides of the same human mode of experiential transcendence. I am increasingly convinced that conversion is the individual equivalent of revolution. Therefore any real revolutionary is challenged to be a mystic at heart, and he who walks the mystical way is called to unmask the illusory quality of human society. Mysticism and revolution are two aspects of the same attempt to bring about radical change. No mystic can prevent himself from becoming a social critic, since in self-reflection he will discover the roots of a sick society. Similarly, no revolutionary can avoid facing his own human condition, since in the midst of his struggle for a new world he will find that he is also fighting his own reactionary fears and false ambitions.
[. . . ]
For a Christian, Jesus is the man in whom it has indeed become manifest that revolution and conversion cannot be separated in man’s search for experiential transcendence. His appearance in our midst has made it undeniably clear that changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks, but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross.
Jesus was a revolutionary, who did not become an extremist, since he did not offer an ideology, but Himself. He was also a mystic, who did not use his intimate relationship with God to avoid the social evils of his time, but shocked his milieu to the point of being executed as a rebel. In this sense he also remains…the way to liberation and freedom.
Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, p. 20-21