In this episode Gina and Stephanie Byerly talk about intercession prayers, hearing God’s voice, discerning his call on your life and saying “yes”. Stephanie is an intercessor and leader who has served as a community pastor and led prayer ministry.
Meet Stephanie Byerly
Gina:
Stephanie Byerly is a longtime friend, a lover of Jesus, a powerful intercessor, a giant in the kingdom, and one of the most powerful prayer warriors I’ve ever met. Steph, I would love for you to tell your story.
We have an interesting, connected history with how God raised you up as an intercessor prayer warrior, and put a burden and a call in your life for prayer. So I would love for you to share that story. I know a lot of it, but there’s probably stuff I don’t know.
Stephanie:
Thanks for letting me share it. Prayer was always a go-to place for my mom. Even in the Catholic traditions where the prayers are scripted out. Her faith was focused on prayer. So I grew up with prayer being something I did somewhat religiously. I prayed every night. It felt awkward to me if I didn’t pray. It was definitely part of the fabric of my upbringing.
But in the most unexpected of ways, the way I prayed changed and God brought out in me the gift of prophetic intercession. In my former life, so to speak, I was a litigator. I did complex business litigation for a large firm in Orange County. And I remember being on deadlines for work.
And when you’re in a legal deadline, you’re doing a brief research, you get very immersed in it. You forget to eat, your secretary reminds you to get food because you become so immersed in the subject matter. You’re all in creating a good legal argument and trying to put it out in writing to present to the court.
And it was in those seasons that God started talking to me about praying for people. And what’s so great about us getting to connect, was that one of the first people that He did that with was you Gina.
And what’s funny about it is that Gina was one of my sister’s best friends, close friends. I had met Gina before she used to live in San Diego. I did not know her. I didn’t have her phone number. I didn’t connect with her in Orange County.
Gina:
You and I partnered for one of her baby showers. We had a very friendly relationship, but it was acquaintance probably more than anything.
Responding to God’s Invitation to Pray
Stephanie:
So I knew you, but didn’t know you. That’s what was interesting about it, because I remember being in my office on a deadline for some crazy case, and Gina kept popping in my mind, interrupting my thoughts on this deadline. I’m like, “Why am I thinking about Gina Stockton?” And I kept trying to push it out of my mind, but I kept thinking about Gina.
And when you’re on a deadline, you’ve got a lot to do in a very little time space, so those kinds of interruptions are annoying. I don’t want to think about Gina. I don’t know why Gina keeps popping in my mind. But then it dawned on me, I should pray for her. So I finally stopped what I was doing and prayed for her and sure enough, I didn’t keep getting interrupted with the Gina thought.
Well, that situation happened a number of times over the ensuing weeks. And I began to pray for you more regularly, because you kept popping to my mind. I don’t now remember what the themes of the prayers were, but what I saw was that there’s a theme developing in how I was praying for you. So it seemed like there was something to it.
And I said, “Lord, what do You want me to do with this?” He said, “Keep praying.” Finally, at one point I got to where He said, “I want you to tell her that you’ve been praying for her.” And I had to call Christine, my sister, and ask her for your phone number. I didn’t even have your phone number.
And then I had to make the phone call and I was like, “Please don’t answer. Please don’t pick up. Please let me leave a voice mail.” I felt so awkward. And I remember calling and leaving a message and saying, “Hey, this is Chris’s sister, Stephanie. And I wanted you to know you’ve been on my heart lately and I’ve been praying for you and you don’t need to call me back.
There’s nothing to this. Nothing to tell you, but I’ve been praying for X, Y, and Z for you and wanted you to know.” I don’t think you called me back the first time I did that. But I remember there being a few times where I was like, “Oh, I’ve got to call Gina again. I’m supposed to call her and tell her “I’ve been praying for you for whatever.”
Gina:
I love the intimate intentionality of God, that He would meet you, that He loved you enough in that moment, in the middle of the night, in the middle of your briefs and all the things that were so important to you, He loved you enough to tap you on the shoulder and go, “Hey, I have something for you.”
It reminds me of Samuel and Eli and that whole story. Hannah prayed for a son. She had been barren. She has a son, dedicates him to the Lord, leaves him with the prophet. And Samuel starts hearing the Lord call his name in the middle of the night. And he runs to Eli and says, “Yes, what do you need?” And Samuel’s like, “It wasn’t me go to bed.”
After a couple of nights of that, Eli finally discerns that it’s the Lord and says, “It’s not me, it’s the Lord. Next time He wakes you up, say ” What is it?”” And that’s the same intimacy that God was pursuing you with. That tap on the shoulder. And then finally you’re like, “Lord, what is it?” You said yes to that.
Then not the intimate intentionality with you, but the intimate intentionality with me that God loves me enough, that He would tap you on the shoulder. Your life is completely different than mine. You’re not in my small group. You’re not my close friend who would naturally be burdened for me. God placed a burden on you for me.
The depth and the overwhelming humbling awareness that brings when you get a phone call or a message from someone like that. You realize that God loves you to that degree. I don’t remember what I was going through then, but I do remember how overwhelming that was. I do remember how humbled I felt and the awe that it struck into my heart in that moment. Such a demonstration of how God is pursuing us.
If we posture ourselves to have ears to hear and even when we don’t. It wasn’t that you were intentionally going, “Lord, what do you have for me?” I wonder how many times He’s tapping us on the shoulder and we do ignore it and brush it aside and we’re missing something.
And He tapped enough that you finally went “Okay.” That you finally, relenting, opened a door for a gift and a path and a journey with Him that was powerful and powerful for me. It was a gift for me.
Co-laboring with Christ in Prayer
Stephanie:
It was cool on many levels. It demonstrates not only His love. When you look in the book of Revelation and it talks about Jesus on His throne, His power and how amazing He is. And then when John falls before Him, face down, and He reaches His hand out and touches John. There’s something so tender about it.
But at the same time, it’s in the midst of His almighty power. Holy spirit can orchestrate. I always pray for laborers in the field when I’m praying over a situation, because of these experiences that I can fall back on. I know that the landscape is way larger than I could think of. I can call people by name, ask them to pray over a situation.
But I always pray to the Holy Spirit and say, “Bring me laborers in the field over this situation.” Because He will rise up people that I do not know that are praying over the situation as He did with me, for you and now countless people. That’s happened so many times, the journey that He’s brought me on and how often when I do reach out to people that how I’ve been praying is dead on their circumstances.
And it’s not because I’m a psychic, it’s because the Holy Spirit cares about the information that He gives you. He tells you how to pray for people. When you listen in, when you’re in partnership and you’re in intimacy with Him, He’s going to speak to you. There’s success. You’re able to hit the target.
You’re able to effect a change in circumstances through your prayers. Because you’re petitioning to God about the things that need to be petitioned about, because Holy Spirit is helping you through that process. It’s loving and it’s intimate and it’s personal, but it’s also a demonstration of God’s might and His power.
And what gets in the way so often is our false humility. I battled with that, “I’m going to feel like such a dork leaving her a message.” As if I’m someone awesome that I don’t want it to come off weird. And I don’t remember how many times He asked me to call you before I actually got the guts to do it.
But then finally, again, it was this annoying thing I had to do so that I would stop thinking about it. But learning about this is not about me. It’s about me in the sense that He wants to embody us and how He created us and use us according to His call. It’s about me and it’s about my yes, but it’s not about giving attention to me. It’s about what He can release through my obedience to Him.
Gina:
I love that you went there with the statement of the false humility which is so easy for us to presume to even fool ourselves into believing that is humility. There’s a huge difference and insecurity and who do I think I am, it’s silly me. That is not humility. That is false humility. That is actually pride. Insecurity is pride.
That’s worrying about feeling foolish, worrying about what other people think, worrying about failure. That’s all self-centered. But the humility that we’re called to, is this grand miraculous mystery that God is inviting us to partner with Him. Because the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is already interceding. Jesus is interceding for us.
He is our Great High Priest, but for whatever reason, He chooses to invite us in to partner and co-labor with us. He doesn’t need you to pray for me, to bring about His will, but He chooses, He’s a relational God. He created us to be relational people and it’s about dependence and abiding and it’s a demonstration of intimacy and relationship.
It’s an invitation to come along with Him. When you recognize that, it’s overwhelming in the fact that you’re witnessing Him move and it’s humbling, because you see Him doing it. You’re on the front lines and you’re seeing it and you see God move. Then you can worship Him.
That’s different from what the enemy tries to spin in us, which is the false humility, which is insecurity, which minimizes our authority and our gift. Minimizes and renders us paralyzed and impotent in how God designed us to function in spiritual community, designed us to function in this world as representatives of Him and being His body.
It’s powerful and stoked that you talked about that. Take that journey further, because I look at you now and you’re a giant, you’re a spiritual giant in my book. Something that’s important to me on Sacred Space is that I want to have people like you on here that a lot of people in the church will never know your name, who you are.
You’re not a ministry celebrity, but you are a giant in the kingdom. God grew your yes, your continued yes. He invited and allowed, gave space. Because we have a choice. We have free will. So the degree to which we grow, mature and are transformed is only going to be equal to the degree to which we allow, receive and invite the Holy Spirit, the Father and Jesus to come in and do that deepening and widening and excavating.
Talk a little bit about that journey. Here you are, a litigator, starting to pray and then you finally got the boldness to voice mail me once in a while. But there was more to your journey than praying for me.
Check out the rest of this conversation How to Hear The Good Shepherd
Check out the Dwell MeditationsI
