A Burden for Prayer: 5 Days to Prayer Motivated by the Holy SpiritSample

Surrender your heart to the Lord

The term “heart” refers to the control center of our life. It is used not only for our emotions but also for our mind— “thoughts of their hearts” (Gen. 6:5) and our will—“as he has decided in his heart” (2 Cor. 9:7). God is able to place His ministry and prayer burdens on the heart that is surrendered to Him. We observe in Romans 9:2 that Paul had “great sorrow and unceasing grief ” in his heart as he contemplated his fellow Israelites. This is what led to his prayers for them, which were an expression of his heart’s desire (Rom. 10:1).

Not every ministry or prayer burden will be assigned to you. In the words of Richard Foster, “If the idea is accompanied by a sense of dread, then you should probably set it aside. God will lead someone else to pray for the matter.” It is incredibly liberating to realize that God does not assign everything that needs to be prayed for to you personally. Although we need to be willing to receive any prayer burden, not all of these will be given to us, nor will we be given the grace to carry all of them. Saying no to what has not been assigned to us allows us to say yes and experience God’s gracious enablement to what has been given to us. However, if it is an inner compassionate concern that is energized by God’s Spirit, it may indeed be a prayer project for you.

Years ago, during a sermon at Moody Bible Institute, missionary J. Oswald Sanders described a call as “a growing conviction as you become acquainted with the facts.” Another missionary, Sammy Tippit, gives us this advice: “Find a large group of people and walk among them silently praying, ‘God, let me see these people as You see them. Let me feel what You feel for them.’ Do this regularly and consistently. The Holy Spirit will begin to melt your heart.” As you pray, God will show you how to cooperate with Him. For Paul, it meant accepting God’s call to be the apostle to the Gentiles and provoking his fellow Israelites to jealously desire the blessings of God that they observed on the Gentiles who trusted in their Messiah (Rom. 11:13–14).