I believe intercessory prayer is important because we need to hear our own thoughts and words out loud. We need to jump on board with what we hope is the will of God and what may well be the will of God. It is an exercise in participation, in unitive caring together with God: what Paul calls divine and human cooperation (Romans 8:28). God does not need our prayers as much as we need to say them to even know the deepest will and desire of God—and our own. Our prayers are simply seconding the motion. The first motion is always from God’s Spirit working in the soul, making us care about human suffering and need. When we pray sincerely, God has already spoken to us, and we are just saying yes to what God wants even more than we do. That is why prayer leads us to fall in love with God, because we know we are not doing this good thing. It is being done unto us and through us. It also seems that we don’t know our own needs, feelings, and thoughts until we speak them. So, we all must keep praying “with groans unutterable” (Romans 8:23) until our prayers match the much deeper caring of God, and we discover that our own will and God’s will are finally the same.
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