A watcher, warrior, and intercessor standing before a diverse company of believers

IM · Lessons from my journey

Intercessors’
Mistakes

These are not observations I make from a distance. They are lessons I have learned as I have matured in prayer, watching, prophecy, and friendship with God.

Intercession is not always execution

Attempting to execute every burden you are called to carry.

As I matured in my calling to pray, I became more satisfied with intercession and watching—not simply getting up and going into the city to execute everything God had called me to pray about. That satisfaction came over time. When you see a need and carry it before God, it is natural to feel that you must also have a part in fulfilling the answer. But God gradually taught me to give myself to prayer, intercession, and watching, and to find joy in praying a matter through.

This does not mean God will never tell an intercessor to act. At times He will. The mistake is assuming that every burden is also a personal commission to organize, confront, lead, fund, or execute. I have learned to remain before God long enough to discern whether He is asking me to pray, speak, act, or release the matter to someone carrying a different grace. Moses held up his hands while Joshua fought. Both assignments mattered, but they were not the same assignment.

I think of Anna and Simeon. They waited and prayed for the consolation and redemption of Israel. When Jesus was presented in the temple, they recognized Him, blessed God, spoke what had been entrusted to them, and then passed out of the Gospel story. Anna did not have to raise the child or execute His ministry. Her part was to watch, wait, pray, recognize the answer, and rejoice. There is a lonely but beautiful maturity in knowing that prayer can be your full obedience.

“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit… and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.”

Exodus 17:8–13 · Luke 2:25–38 · 1 Corinthians 12:4–6

An intercessor praying alone while family and friends share a meal nearby

Solitude must not become isolation

Allowing the prayer life to become an isolated life.

I learned this lesson the hard way. It is a horrible thing to become beautiful and strong in prayer while failing to manage your social life. Intercessors, watchers, and prayer warriors can become reclusive because of the time demanded by prayer. We can become some of the loneliest people in the Body of Christ. Solitude with God is necessary, but isolation from people is dangerous.

When you manage your social life properly, you live happier, healthier, and often longer. You even look younger because joy, friendship, and healthy companionship affect the whole person. I have had to be intentional about creating genuine friendships with God’s people around me. One of the strange things about prayer ministry is that we can have prayer partners who are not truly friends. We may reach a powerful level of agreement in prayer and yet fail to have one another’s backs in ordinary life.

Some of my closest friends today are people with whom I have prayed for years in Courts of Prayer. We have learned not only to agree before God, but to care for one another beyond the prayer meeting. Anna’s long life of fasting and prayer inspires me, but her story must not become an excuse for unhealthy withdrawal. God often sustains us through fellowship, family, trusted friends, and people who notice when we are weary. Being alone with God is not the same as being cut off from humanity.

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together… but exhorting one another.”

Luke 2:36–38 · Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 · Hebrews 10:24–25

Steward the body that keeps the watch

Neglecting health, nourishment, and rest.

Oh my goodness—this demanded discipline. I had to learn not to eat too late at night, not to overfeed simply because I had broken a fast, and not to treat an unhealthy lifestyle as evidence of spirituality. Intercession can alter your lifestyle. Watching can alter it seriously. Many watchers expend their energy at night, and without discipline their sleeping, feeding, and recovery patterns become disordered.

I have known people who fasted until they began seeing spirits. I remember seasons when some of my friends fasted until they started dressing like John the Baptist and carrying walking sticks. I am not joking. Spiritual intensity without wisdom can become imbalance. Fasting, irregular meals, prolonged wakefulness, and neglect of genuine symptoms can slowly create health problems. The body is not expendable; it must be stewarded so that we can remain faithful over the long term.

Loneliness also affects health. Many unmarried or widowed intercessors love pets because they offer accessible companionship, and that can be a genuine gift. But pets cannot replace every form of human fellowship and care. Married intercessors must make thoughtful decisions with their spouses and families about prayer hours, meals, rest, and household responsibilities. Elijah’s story reminds me that when he was depleted, God gave him sleep, food, water, and further rest before sending him onward.

“Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.”

1 Kings 19:5–8 · Mark 6:31 · 1 Corinthians 6:19–20

Protect the first love

Becoming more attached to people than to God.

This became a strong lesson for me, especially in my office as a prophet. God began warning me about my attachment to people. I found it difficult to deliver negative words or warnings because I knew I could return to God and intercede for them. I found it hard to accept that God might permit certain consequences in the lives of people I loved. There is a balance in this, and I will teach more about it, but excessive attachment can change the very nature of our intercession.

When I become too attached to a person, I may stop praying from the burden God has given me and begin praying from my affinity, fear, preference, or emotional attachment. Compassion is essential; control and sentiment are not. My intimacy with God must remain deeper than my attachment to the person or situation for which I pray.

Abraham helps me see this tension. He pleaded, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” and God heard him, promising to bless Ishmael greatly. Later, when Sarah demanded that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away, the matter was grievous to Abraham because of his son. God cared for Hagar and Ishmael, but He also required Abraham to accept that the covenant line would come through Isaac. Love may cause us to plead, but friendship with God must also teach us to accept His distinction, His order, and His will.

“O that Ishmael might live before thee!”

Genesis 17:18–21 · Genesis 21:9–21 · John 15:4–5

A weary watcher standing apart from a joyful gathering

Do not surrender your faith in people

Becoming disenchanted with humanity.

It is possible to see so much that you become disenchanted. Today people might call it being “blackpilled” or falling into doomerism. God shows you many difficult things, you observe enemies marching against the Church, and eventually a voice says, “It is all a waste of time. The world is ending anyway. Nothing can change.” That mindset drains faith from intercession.

Watchers often recognize conspiracies, spiritual attacks, and patterns other people do not see. We may see unusual things, discern what the devil is preparing, and sense an attack before it becomes visible. But discernment must never become hopelessness. I must not lose faith in humanity, civilization, government, the Church, or the possibility of mercy simply because I have seen their failures. I have written about this in my books: do not surrender your faith, especially to the endless atmosphere created by conspiracy theories.

Jesus told the story of the widow who kept pressing an unjust judge until he answered her. Immediately afterward He asked, “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” That question warns me that prolonged waiting and repeated injustice can exhaust faith. My calling is not merely to see darkness; it is to keep believing, keep praying, and keep expecting God to intervene.

“When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”

Luke 18:1–8 · Galatians 6:9 · Habakkuk 2:1–4

Revelation requires humility

Becoming proud because of friendship with God.

There was a season when I felt proud of how much God spoke to me about deep things. The word of knowledge was very strong in my life. I would intercede for people and know remarkable details about their lives. Then God said to me, “Henry, if you deal with your pride, I will tell you deeper things.” That correction has stayed with me.

Anybody who boasts about the depth of what God has shared with them has already placed a limit on how much God can safely share. Scripture says that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. When I become proud of revelation, I make myself unsafe for deeper revelation. Humility is not an ornamental virtue for an intercessor; it is part of the capacity through which mysteries can be entrusted.

Friendship with God should make me gentler, not superior; more patient with God’s people, not more dismissive of them. Revelation is entrusted for prayer, warning, healing, service, and restoration—not to advertise my importance. The deeper God takes me, the more deeply I must bow.

“God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.”

James 4:6 · 2 Corinthians 12:7 · Micah 6:8

A prayer warrior speaking harshly toward a wounded church congregation

Burden must not become poison

Falling into toxic negativity.

Toxic negativity is related to disenchantment, but it goes further: the disappointment begins to spill onto other people. I have watched prayer warriors begin saying, “The Church is lost. Nothing can be done.” Then they spread that negativity everywhere—in comment sections, teachings, conversations, and churches. They no longer measure their words or consider how those words affect younger believers and vulnerable sheep.

Some of these people once loved the Church. They were intercessors and watchers who prayed for the Bride of Christ. But seeing so many negative things began to affect them until the burden became poison. Now they walk into a church and all they carry is accusation, contempt, and bad news. They put the Church in a bad light without caring whom their harshness wounds.

Jonah knew that God was gracious and merciful, yet he became angry when Nineveh received mercy. I must never prefer the fulfillment of judgment over the redemption of people. Mature intercession sees sin clearly while still carrying love, faith, care, hope, and the expectation that God can revive and restore His people.

“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope.”

Jonah 4:1–11 · Ephesians 4:29 · Romans 15:13

Love the people you are asking God to revive

Thinking intercession is only against negativity, judgment, and destruction.

Being judgmental is believing that the only things God gives me to watch and pray about are sin, judgment, destruction, and ministers who have failed. Some people even begin to treat exposing sin as their entire responsibility. I understand how that happens because, when I was starting in revival ministry, I thought the first qualification of a revival minister was to hate what the Church had become.

I would lambaste the Church: everybody was carnal, everybody was compromised, everybody was wrong. But I came to understand that I cannot be a revivalist for a Church I do not love. Why would I want to revive what I despise? If God does not give me love and care for the Church, then accusation—however spiritual it sounds—does not make me a true revivalist.

That was Jonah’s problem. He did not love Nineveh, so he sat outside the city waiting for its destruction. Yet God loved Nineveh, even though He was the One they had sinned against and the One who sent the prophet to warn them. When they repented, God forgave them. That is the love of God. Intercession is larger than announcing woe. It includes thanksgiving, salvation, revival, healing, wisdom, strength for the Church, labourers for the harvest, and agreement with the good God desires to establish. Judgmental intercession eventually steals love, joy, fellowship, and hope. I do not want to become accurate about darkness and unlike God in spirit.

“Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city…?”

Jonah 4:5–11 · 1 Timothy 2:1–4 · Galatians 6:1

Return to the secret place

Stay close to God, tender toward people, and faithful to your assignment.

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Intercessors’Mistakes