Douglas Steere is a well regarded academic and scholar. Called a brilliant thinker by some he studied at both Harvard and Oxford and in his early life was a Rhodes scholar. Steere was a Quaker who skilfully authored many devotional books and is part of a small circle of people who have managed to combine their academic integrity with their spiritual authenticity. As a missionary with his with Dorothy Steere is credited with well balancing the contemplative, or inner life with action, or the outer life.  His work Prayer and Worship engages the reader to take up the highly important work of prayer, particularly intercessory prayer while keeping in mind the need to respond to the call of God with actions.

Steere contends that,"Prayer for others is a form of petitional prayer that makes deep demands on the faith of an individualistic generation that has so largely lost its sense of inner community."  If the spirit of our age is, as it is widely reported, consumerist and individual, then prayer that is centred on the other must draw us deeply into a place that is unnatural to us.

When we are holding up the life of another person before God we are putting their needs before our own. We may be praying for their release from destructive behaviour, for the restoration of health or perhaps the strength to resist temptations in the world. When we engage in this prayer for the other "only then do we sense what it means to share in God’s work… only then do the walls that separate us from others go down and we sense that we are at bottom all knot together in a great and intimate family"

In prayer we begin to experience the community of God and the community of the Church. In intercession we are agreeing with God that the needs of others are important and acknowledging that it is outside of our power to bring change to some situations. It is to say that with God all things are possible so to God we ask for the impossible to be done. This is not to say that we can change God’s mind on matters, "Such prayer is only cooperation with God’s active love in besieging the life or new areas of the life of another."

In prayer Steerecontends that it is an active force not only for what we pray but for changing the heart of the prayer. "In all petitional prayer, the one who really prays must be ready to yield."  We may start with clear intention of who we are praying for and what we believe needs to change in their life to see the breakthrough that we desire, but it is God’s active love that will be the final determiner of what needs praying for.

"There can be no complete prayer life that does not return to the point from which we began."  This petitional prayer is an outpouring of love and concern for the life of another of which our expression is a reflection of the heart of God for every soul. This prayer returned onto itself is what Steere refers to as "adoration". "Adoration is ‘loving back’. For in the prayer of adoration we love God for himself, for his very being, for his radiant joy."

When we seek the heart of God to intercede in the life of another we are engaging in an activity that aligns our thoughts with God’s thoughts and our will with His will. We are not so much changing the mind of God but ourselves coming to understand God’s will and acting in cooperation with God’s active force of love.