Intercession is like green bean casserole

A few days ago I sat down for a little chat with an acquaintance that would soon become my newest friend.  We both ended up at a World Race training camp up in the mountains of Tennessee, and were just chatting one morning over breakfast.  We didn’t know each other before this and had only heard each other’s names in our work circles.  We talked about life and our experiences living overseas and all of that “normal” stuff.  We were just kinda shooting the breeze.  So it came as a surprise to me when this person said, “so tell me about this intercession gift you have.”  Whaaat?!  I thought.  Well that’s random.  What would make her ask that question?  We began talking about this and I realized how quickly I tried to dismiss the idea that I, Kayla Phillips, have anything close to something that would be called a gift of intercession. 

And then I found myself thinking through all of this…

I feel like there’s this huge buffet table full of all the different gifts that God has laid about before me, intercession being one of them.  But for some reason, just like the green bean casserole at Thanksgiving, I keep passing over it.
 
Perhaps it’s time I stop passing over that dish.  I know God has given me this intercession thing, and I think I operate in it more than I realize or admit.  It’s just not one of the gifts that I think I'm good at, so sometimes I tell myself that I don’t have it.  Hmmm, I don’t like how that sounds like performance.  Sigh. 
 
Perhaps it’s that when I think of intercessors, I think of these larger than life people that have this incredible prayer life and spend hours upon hours sitting in their prayer closet praying, fasting, interceding for people and issues of the world. 
 
For me intercession doesn’t look like this, at all.  For me it looks like throughout the day God bringing certain individuals to mind just out of the blue usually.  Then if I’m paying attention I’ll ask God what He wants me to pray for them about.  Sometimes I know how to pray for them, most of the time I don’t have a clue.  But regardless, I pray.  This happens in my car on the way to work, at my desk as I’m answering the umpteen million emails, and as I’m walking up the 40 steps to my apartment.  It usually happens as this kinda casual conversation God and I have. 
 
But then every once in a while intercession looks different… like there will be something/someone that I feel like I'm just warring for/on behalf of.  Like literally going to war to fight for them.  It’s something/someone that I can’t get off my mind, that I can’t stop praying for.  It’s exhausting and drains me.  I don’t know if I like this.  But I know when this happens it’s from God and I’m learning how to run with it. 
 
So….intercession for me is like green bean casserole.  It’s that dish on the Thanksgiving table that I pass over initially, but then I go back and get some.  Right now it’s kind of the dish that I think, oh I probably should get some of that.  At first it could almost feel like an obligation thing.  Like, Granny is watching who dishes up her green bean casserole and I probably should just take a little spoonful just to be polite….after all she made it herself.  So I take some, even though I don’t think I like it.  But then when I taste it, I like it and I'm glad I went back for it. 

So here’s to embracing ALL the gifts God has for me, even the ones I don’t think I’ll like. 

What’s your green bean casserole?