This month, our meditation has been excerpted from the book entitled Bound to Be Free compiled by Jan Pit. In the following short quotation from Sister Chen (Chinese, a pillar of God's house in China), there is fodder for reflection and perhaps application:
He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord. (Psalm 113:9)
I remember an old lady, 90 years old, serving the Lord in a very spiritual way. She has been ordained by the Lord to be celibate. To worldly people, she is a barren woman. And yet she is bearing more fruit, spiritual fruit, than everybody else. To this very day, at the age of 90, she lives a life of intercession. She gives birth to many spiritual children. She feeds many spiritual infants with milk, making them grow in the love of Christ.
Is this woman barren? No, she has more spiritual children than any other mother has natural children. The Church in China respects and loves this old, happy mother of many children, very much.
'The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green' (Psalm 92:12-14)
A moment of introspection: In our intercession, we strive to be effective on behalf of the suffering Church across the globe. We work at bringing before God's mercy seat the anguishes and triumphs of persecuted brothers and sisters of the faith, their cries for healing as they suffer wrongful acts for the fact of their faith. We bring our requests to God... We pray, and our prayers fill the censers in heaven with incense used in worshiping God (Revelation 8:3).
How many 'spiritual children' have we produced through our faithfulness in intercession? We many never know. Our prayer lives are not barren--our intercession not devoid of outcome. Faithfulness in intercession is a hallmark of House Of Prayer leaders or facilitators. I have separately heard repeated true stories of persons who continued throughout life to pray for a relation to accept Christ as their Savior and Lord. Sometimes they heard that, on their relation's deathbed, their sister or brother, aunt or uncle, parent or child had done so; sometimes the intercessor did not have the privilege of discovering that decision in this lifetime. It is curiosity at work for one in prayer to desire to know the outcome of one's prayers for others. But we need not have that privilege of knowing, to continue in prayer for individuals, for states, nations and faiths. For us, let it be sufficient to be assured that prayer "moves the hand of God", according to Brother Andrew (Founder of Open Doors).
For our family of Christians, we are not barren in prayer. On behalf of God's own, we stand in the gap and pray for peoples and persons. When we are 90 years old (just as is true at our present age), may we be discovered bearing spiritual fruit--more fruit than everybody else. Intercession goes a long way, it is powerful, and it brings the sweetness of incense to the throne room of God.