Hungry for God: A Lesson in Intercession

“And they brought to Him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged Him to lay His hand on him”—Mark 7:32

What friends this man had! He was deaf and had a speech impediment and his friends took him to Jesus for healing. We can’t physically take our loved one’s to Jesus anymore. So we have to take them through prayer. Jesus and His disciples came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to Him a blind man. They begged Him, and the word is parakalousin, which is a compound word that comes from para, which means close beside and kaleo, which means to call. The idea here is of one so close to another they become advocates for the person. And that is exactly what is going on, they are bringing their friend to Christ and they are begging the Lord to change him.

That’s what intercession is—getting on our knees, bringing them to the Lord in prayer, and begging the Lord to change them. I’m reminded of Jim Cymbala, the pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle in Brooklyn, New York. He writes about his daughter, Chrissy. Chrissy had rebelled against the Lord and left the faith. The more that Jim pressed the worse that Chrissy got. A pastor that Jim had persuaded Chrissy to see told Jim to let her go. He said that he didn’t have much choice. She was going to do whatever she wanted to do, she was eighteen and she was determined. He told him that he was going to have to accept whatever his daughter decided. But he said,

“Back home in New York, I began to pray with an intensity and growing faith as never before. Whatever bad news I would receive about Chrissy, I kept interceding and actually began praising God for what I knew he would do soon. I made no attempts to see her. Carol and I endured the Christmas season with real sadness. I was pathetic, sitting around trying to open presents with our other two children, without Chrissy.

February came. One cold Tuesday night during the prayer meeting, I talked from Acts 4 about the church boldly calling on God in the face of persecution. We entered into a time of prayer, everyone reaching out to the Lord simultaneously.

An usher handed me a note. A young woman whom I felt to be spiritually sensitive had written: Pastor Cymbala, ‘I feel impressed that we should stop the meeting and all pray for your daughter.’

I hesitated. Was it right to change the flow of the service and focus on my personal need?

Yet something in the note seemed to ring true. In a few minutes I picked up a microphone and told the congregation what had just happened. ‘The truth of the matter,’ I said, ‘although I haven’t talked much about it, is that my daughter is very far from God these days. She thinks up is down, and down is up; dark is light, and light is dark. But I know God can break through to her, and so I’m going to ask Pastor Bokstaaf to lead us in praying for Chrissy. Let’s all join hands across the sanctuary.’

As my associate began to lead the people, I stood behind him with my hand on his back. My tear ducts had run dry, but I prayed as I best I knew.

To describe what happened in the next minutes, I can only employ a metaphor: The church turned into a labor room. The sounds of women giving birth are not pleasant, but the results are wonderful. Paul knew this when he wrote, ‘My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you…’ (Gal. 4:19).

There arose a groaning, a sense of desperate determination, as if to say, ‘Satan, you will not have this girl. Take your hands off her—she’s coming back!’ I was overwhelmed. The force of that vast throne calling on God almost literally knocked me over.

When I got home that night, Carol was waiting up for me. We sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee, and I said, ‘It’s over.’

‘What’s over?’ she wondered.

‘It’s over with Chrissy. You would have had to be in the prayer meting tonight. I tell you, if there’s a God in heaven, this whole nightmare is finally over.’ I described what had taken place.

Thirty-two hours later, on Thursday morning, as I was shaving, Carol suddenly burst through the door, her eyes wide. ‘Go downstairs!’ she blurted. ‘Chrissy’s here.’

‘Chrissy’s here?’

‘Yes! Go down!’

‘But Carol—I—‘

‘Just go down,’ she urged. ‘It’s you she wants to see.’

I wiped off the shaving foam and headed down the stairs, my heart pounding. As I came around the corner, I saw my daughter on the kitchen floor, rocking on her hands and knees, sobbing. Cautiously I spoke her name:

‘Chrissy?’

She grabbed my pant leg and began pouring out her anguish. ‘Daddy—Daddy—I’ve sinned against God. I’ve sinned against myself. I’ve sinned against you and Mommy. Please forgive me—‘

My vision was as clouded by tears as hers. I pulled her up from the floor and held her close as we cried together.

Suddenly she drew back. ‘Daddy,’ she said with a start, ‘who was praying for me? Who was praying for me?’ Her voice was like that of a cross-examining attorney.

‘What do you mean, Chrissy?’

‘On Tuesday night, Daddy—who was praying for me?’ I didn’t say anything, so she continued:

‘In the middle of the night, God woke me and showed me I was heading toward this abyss. There was no bottom to it—it scared me to death. I was so frightened. I realized how hard I’ve been, how wrong, how rebellious.

‘But at the same time, it was like God wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. He kept me from sliding any farther as he said, ‘I still love you.’

‘Daddy, tell me the truth—who was praying for me Tuesday night?’

I looked into her bloodshot eyes, and once again I recognized the daughter we raised.

Chrissy’s return to the Lord became evident immediately. By that fall, God had opened a miraculous door for her to enroll at Bible college, where she not only undertook studies but soon began directing music groups and a large choir, just like her mother. Today she is a pastor’s wife in the Midwest with three wonderful children. Through all this, Carol and I learned as never before that persistent calling upon the Lord breaks through every stronghold of the devil, for nothing is impossible with God”—Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997, pp. 63-66.

God changed the man in our passage today—he no longer was deaf and possessed a speech impediment. Jesus healed him. He worked through the love of the man’s friends and He works through our love as well. How many of us have a wayward son or daughter like Jim Cymbala had? How many of us have grandchildren who have rebelled and turned their back on God? Perhaps a parent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, cousin, colleague, or classmate—one thing is for certain. They need Jesus and He is the only one who can change them. Let us then go to the Lord and beg of Him for their life so that He might intercede and do only what He can do—save and transform them. Amen.