Prayerful Multitasking: Two Key Strategies for Covering Diverse Needs and Individuals In Prayer

Praying in tongues is like placing a lot of documents in a zip folder and sending them all at once to the person who needs them.

There are a lot of needs and people to pray for.

• There are personal physical, spiritual and material needs you want to pray for.

• There are needs of your family, both immediate and extended.

• There are needs of your friends and acquaintances.

• There are needs of the people in your church community or fellowship.

• There are needs of your city, state or country.

• There are needs of the gospel both in home and foreign mission fields.

It can be overwhelming when you look at the long list of people and needs you want to pray for and the time at your disposal to pray for them.

And have you realized that when you begin to pray for the healing of a sick person, God will begin to show you more sick people you need to pray for?

When you begin to pray for waiting mothers, God will remind you of other waiting mothers.

When you begin to pray for a nation, God will begin to show you needs in other nations of the world. The more you pray, the more you will realize you need to pray even more.

In Ephesians 6:18, we are also commanded to pray for all saints.

‭‭"...praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints…" NKJV

The question is, how do we pray for all saints when we have limited time to do so?

Your list of personal needs can sometimes be so long that you don't even have the time to pray for others.

Since most of us are not full time intercessors, how then do we pray for a lot of people and needs around us? How do we clear the long list of requests before us? How do we live such that we keep our promises to people to pray for them?

I discovered two strategies you can adopt for praying through a long list of needs and people. They are;

Make Mention of the Needs or People.

Usually, you want to spend a considerable time on each of the prayer points before you. And that's fine. And Yes, you should have the habit of spending quality time on prayer points as inspired by the Holy Spirit.

There will even be times when you will only be able to resolve just a prayer point throughout your praying time because that is the need that is paramount at that time to God.

However, there will be times you actually need to pray over each need one after the other. This is where most of us find it overwhelming.

Paul spoke about a strategy he uses to ensure that every need and people around him are covered by his prayers. In Romans 1:9, he said,

‭‭"For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers,..." NKJV.

You can adopt the method of just making mention of the needs and persons on your list. In this case, your goal is to pray through every need on your list. It often sound like this,

• Lord, heal Sister Catherine of malaria.

• Lord, remember Pastor Samson and give his family the fruit of the womb.

• Lord, let there be peace in the Middle East.

• Turn around the economy of Nigeria O Lord.

I believe this is what Paul meant when he said, "I make mention of you always in my prayers." I believe this kind of prayer goes a long way too and you should never allow the enemy make you feel, your prayer is not deep.

David didn't have the time for prolonged prayer and fasting when he heard of the counsels of Ahithophel. All he did was mention the matter to God in simple prayer,

“O Lord, I pray Thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.” 2 Samuel 15:31.

And the counsel of Ahithophel was destroyed.

It might be too late if David was waiting for a time when he would have time to pray.

Of course, you still have to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit in the process of mentioning needs to Him. There might be one of the prayer needs that require more attention but the point here is this: you can cover a lot of grounds in prayer if you simply adopt the method of making mention of people and needs in prayer.

This strategy can be used anytime. Make mention of people and needs in your prayer as you go about your work and daily responsibilities. I have learnt that sometimes when someone comes to mind, it is because there is a prayer need around the fellow.

Pray in Tongues.

Praying in tongues is another supernatural way of covering a lot of needs and people in our prayers.

Have you ever been in the prayer place and all you could do is pray in other tongues even though you have a lot of prayer points before you? You will notice that it comes with a sense of relief. It would seem as if you have prayed through all the prayer items before you.

I believe what happens at such a moment is that the Holy Spirit helped our spirit to supernaturally convey all our requests to God.

Praying in tongues is like placing a lot of documents in a zip folder and sending them all at once to the person who needs them. When you pray in tongues, you can pray through a lot of prayer needs all at once.

In his book, Tongues Beyond the Upper Room, Kenneth E. Hagin made a comment on the command of the Bible for us to pray for all saints as contained in Ephesians 6:18,

"...praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints…" NKJV

He said,

"When we pray with other tongues, we are able to not only build ourselves up, but also fulfill God's command to pray for all the saints. There is no way we could pray for all saints with our understanding because in the natural we don't know all the saints. But God has provided this means of supernatural communication, apart from our understanding, to enable us to do just that."

When next you are faced with a long list of needs and prayer requests, you can try to quickly make mention of them before God

or stack them together in one folder and send them to the heavens in tongues.

© Olufemi Babalola

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