Stop Praying Like A Widow and Start Praying Like A Bride
Dec 12, 2002
By Graham Cooke
I believe this is the time to come into a new season of praying, for a new
strategy for prayer, and for a new way of praying to come upon us.
A new kind of watchman is emerging
Read Esther 2:9-17 carefully. I believe that the time of importuning God is
drawing to a close; that we are to stop praying like a widow and begin to pray
like a bride. A new kind of watchman is emerging.
I wonder how many intercessors have been feeling in recent months that not much
has happened about the things they used to pray against on the battlements.
Perhaps part of you has been blaming the enemy, while another part has almost
experienced a drawing back from this type of prayer, but you don't know why.
A forerunner of intimate prayer
I believe God is making many into a forerunner of intimate prayer, taking you
out of one type of prayer, that has been very successful in terms of ministry,
and bringing you into a whole new season of prayer.
I think it was Derek Prince who spoke in the 1970/80s of the prophets not being
able to go further until the psalmists took their place. At that time there was
an incredible anointing for new forms of worship, beyond what we were used to.
As those new forms of worship began to take hold, so the prophetic anointing
began to increase.
I feel that until the intercessors take their place the apostolic will be
hindered in being fully positioned.
Real warfare in the kingdom is always concerned with the battle for intimacy.
This is a time to come off the battlements and enter a new place of intimate
petition. Too many intercessors have become exhausted and burned out.
A season of intense favour for intercessors
I believe a year of intense favour specifically for intercessors is coming - a
year of deep and profound love, a year of exquisite peace, a year of excessive
joy, and six months of oil.
Six months of cleansing and joyful refining will be followed by six months of
the fragrant presence of the Lord, where in normal life you will be putting on
Christ in a fresh and more exhilarating manner. As you learn to become conformed
to Him and His nature, and be transformed in your minds and personalities, He
will teach you to look beyond the natural into the supernatural realm so that
you can see the kingdom of heaven at work.
It will no longer matter what life, people or the enemy throw at you. You will
look beyond the natural and discover the kingdom of God at work all around you.
Read 2 Kings 6 - When Elisha was surrounded by an army of the enemy, he looked
beyond all of that and saw an army of the hosts of heaven.
I believe God is raising up an army of Esthers, an army of bridal intercessors,
and it is a time to come off the wall and rest in the throne room presence of
God.
It will be difficult for some people to come out of one type of ministry into
the discipline of resting in God, but the discipline of rest must be entered -
it is a time of laying down ministry to gain fresh intimacy.
Watchmen from a secret place
In this next season, I believe the Lord is going to prune your ministry in order
to produce bridal love and affection, and from that intimacy a new intercessory
power will emerge; one that is earthed in favour and worship, where you will
become watchmen from a secret place of the heart, and throne room prayer will
take on a whole new substance. In this season you are not going to be looking
for the enemy.
Your place as watchman is to look for the return of the King. You will have
prophetic revelation in order for us to confront the enemy because the King is
here.
In that context, as the King comes, so the enemy will come after Him. As you
proclaim the coming of the King, the Lord will say to you, 'and the enemy is
coming up by this way'. It will be like Jehaziel, in the time of Jehoshaphat -
when the Spirit of God came upon him, he identified where the enemy was and what
he was about to do.
Pray in a different way
Don't pray with importunity, like the widow before the unjust judge, pray with
delight and favour. Don't pray against the enemy, but let your delighted prayers
cause the King to stir himself and come down. There is an edict coming forth
from the King of Kings that will cause protection to come forth over the body
and throughout the body of Christ to the earth. This anointing will cause you to
intercede with joy that the glory of God will fill the earth.
What is the glory of God? When Moses asked God to show His glory, God said He
would cause His goodness to pass before him.
The glory of God is that He is good!
As bridal intercessors, it will be your joy and delight to pray for the goodness
of God to come down so that the church can learn that we really do overcome evil
with good.
The Holy Spirit will give you a new strategy for prayer and for praying through
in perseverance; one that contains delight and laughter, full of ardent and
passionate love, bathed in fresh worship, and coming out of a deeper closeness.
Like John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, you will be lying back with your head
on the chest of Jesus, and He will present you with an opportunity to position
Him from restful intimacy, so that you will have a powerful confidence in your
abiding rest in the Lord.
The King of Kings
As you come and petition the Lord out of this place of intimacy, closeness and
worship, He will be pleased to speak into your hearts the favour and blessing of
God. Not only will your prayers move His heart and hands, but the words you
receive from Him will be like a balm of Gilead across the nation, that churches
may rise up in a fresh favour. The attention of the church will be taken off the
enemy and put on the King of Kings.
I pray that the stronghold of God will come down into the earth so that His feet
will touch the earth where we live - and as He touches down amongst us, so His
goodness will spread out from us so we will touch and impact our communities and
overcome evil with good.
Let us thank the Lord for the things we have learned so far, and for the place
He has prepared for us in this next season. Let us pray that He will enable us
to inhabit that place, that we may come into our inheritance; that we may come
into the favour and blessedness that He has set aside for each one of us.
Let us pray that a revelation of the Lord's love for us would fill our hearts,
that we may come into a whole new place of spirituality, a whole new place of
walking with Him, where we will be convinced of the bigness of God, and that God
loves us, cares for us and is for us - that He wants us to succeed and that He
is on our side. Amen!
Graham Cooke
info@grahamcooke.co.uk
http://www.grahamcooke.co.uk/
Graham's Ministry
A
popular conference speaker, Graham has established a wide range of training
programmes, which are renowned for their practical application, teaching
content, and prophetic impartation. Graham is a popular international conference
speaker and teaching overseeing schools and events on the prophetic,
spirituality, devotional life and leadership. Author of two best selling books,
he divides his time between Southampton (UK) and California (USA), with special
interest in Canada, Australia and South Africa.
A
thinker and a strategist, Graham is also a builder with a particular desire to
establish resource churches that are prophetic, progressive and supernatural. In
this capacity he acts as a consultant on the process of transition to a wide
number of churches, cities and networks for the development of new prototype
churches.
Graham has been involved in prophetic ministry since 1974. He founded and directed School of Prophecy from 1986, which has received international acclaim for its advanced series of in-depth training programmes.
Graham is a member of Community Church in Southampton (UK), and is part of c.net (Cornerstone) team. He is married to Heather, and they have three children, Ben, Seth and Sophie.