Greetings Canada’s Kneeling Army,

A man was taking a stage coach across the country, and when he went to buy his ticket he was informed that the First Class seats were $100.00, Second Class seats were $50.00 and Third Class seats were $25.00. The man looked in the stage coach and all the seats looked the same to him, so he bought a Third Class ticket. He congratulated himself on saving money, and promptly settled into his seat. Things were going along quite well, until the stage coach started going up a mountain road. The coach came to a sudden stop and the conductor stood up and said, “First Class passengers please remain seated. Second Class passengers get out and walk, and Third Class passengers please get out and push.”

This illustration of the stage coach is a sad but all too common reality when it comes to prayer meetings and intercession across Canada today. We as believers have also chosen that First Class ticket; people who simply sit back and let others do the work. Close behind are those of us who are like Second Class passengers; we just walk away when there’s work to be done. I believe that, in this hour, what God is calling for as He searches to and fro is to find Third Class passengers; people who will get out and P.U.S.H. – Pray until something happens!

Friends, for many of us who have been on this prayer pilgrimage for years, I know that the responsibility of holding the frontline of intercession for our families, our churches, our communities, and our country, may appear to be impossible. But isn’t it like Almighty God not to allow us to stay in our pity pool very long, as He has chronicled the perseverance of those who have gone before us.

Let’s take a quick look at Moses. Intercessors, let’s remember that God gave Moses the outrageous task of delivering Israel out of the land of Egypt. He too felt ill equipped, tired, and often frustrated. But God did not allow him to stay in that place. At what seemed to be a most inopportune time, God asked Moses, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” Moses replied. Just a walking stick to help him deal with the journey of life. He, like many of us, saw no special significance in it. Then God demonstrated to him the miraculous potential in that seemingly insignificant staff and, don’t you know it, Moses actually fled in terror from his own walking stick! My friends, sometimes God turns simple and common into powerful, authoritative tools! When God finished showing to Moses that his staff was an instrument of divine power and authority and it was all that he needed to fulfill his task, Moses when on to defeat the magicians of Egypt, strip Pharaoh of his power, humiliate Egypt’s gods, and bring Israel from slavery to freedom.

Intercessors, my letter this month is not motivational pish-posh! It’s not a “Let’s go get ‘em!” speech. But it is the very word of God. The truth is that, as stated in the Bible, when we exercise the authority (our walking stick) we’ve been given and persevere, we too, like Jesus, can and will make “a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Col. 2:15).

Kneeling Army, it’s time to change our perspective of prayer from something that is common, bothersome and without power, to something that is extraordinary and supernatural in our hands, to be used in the service of building the kingdom of God and tearing down strongholds! May we, like Moses, be surprised and even terrified at times by our staff of prayer, which we hold in these feeble, unworthy hands.

Third Class Passenger,

Brian Warren

Executive Director, CIP