Prayers That Strike The MarkSample

An Invitation to Intercession

I awoke suddenly out of a vibrant dream that was filled with lightning. (Although this happened years ago, I remember it as if it were yesterday.) One lightning bolt after another exploded before my eyes—continual, splintering, powerful lightning bolts from heaven to earth. No people. No words. Just incessant light, action, sound.

When I woke up from this intense, Holy-Spirit-saturated dream, the whole room still crackled with God’s electric presence. I lingered in that presence for twenty minutes or so before it dissipated. As I lay there musing, What in the world was that about? I saw “Job 36:32” spelled out in large, illuminated letters that were two or three feet tall. I turned on the light and found Job 36:32 in my Bible. I remember thinking dubiously that I rarely seemed to get anything out of the book of Job, but then I read this: “He covers His hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark” (Job 36:32 NASB).

Lightning-fast, I made the connection. Lightning was “striking the mark,” just as our God-directed intercessory prayers do. Prayers that “strike the mark” are prayers authorized by the Holy Spirit and endowed with divine power to accomplish the will of God. The verse that follows comments on the response to what has happened in verse 32: “Its noise declares His presence” (verse 33 NASB). Prayer creates lightning strikes from heaven—and thunder is the corresponding “sound” of that lightning. Prayer creates a thundering noise that declares God’s presence. Thus, prayer produces a sound—more than that, it is meant to produce a combination of sounds. In day 2 of this devotional, we will see how prayer is like the harmonious music of an orchestra.

Intercession is our invitation to call forth the glory that is on God’s hands in heaven and invite it to invade our space on earth. It is a high privilege to pray prayers that strike the mark. In a real way, you could call intercession “extreme prayer,” because it brings together extreme needs with the extraordinary power of God—bridging those two extremes. By inserting ourselves into the gap between God and a need, we help to bring about a work of grace, calling upon the Holy Spirit, our Helper, who is standing by ready to move us from finite ability to infinite ability, enabling us to take hold of situations and help accomplish the will of God.