One Up

There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer.

Arthur Tappan Pierson

Of all the hundreds of names given to the Lord in Scripture, my favorite is Jesus as the Good Shepherd. He knows His sheep, calls His sheep, and pursues His sheep. Matthew 18:12-14 expands on this concept:

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of My Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

Consider today’s featured image. How would you describe the Savior’s demeanor here? Indifferent? Detached? Not at all. He passionately exerts Himself, fully prepared to enter the mess in order to rescue. This is Christ’s heart for those who don’t yet know Him. And we as His family should be equally prepared to passionately exert ourselves for those same lost sheep. (After all, that’s who we used to be. The mud is not so far behind us as to render us ignorant of its dangers.)

One of the best parts of being a pastor’s wife is seeing what God is up to on a larger scale. Right now it would seem He is bent on snatching those who are far from Him out of hell’s devouring pit. We are experiencing a season of spiritual movement, and the need is great—only 6% of Northeast Connecticut claims Christ. So my husband has challenged our church to reach 1% of the population in a five-mile radius over the next five years. That’s 212 souls. Big deal, you say? You must be from the South. Effective evangelism up here is like good barbecue: low and slow, honey.

Anyway, this project requires all hands on deck… and all knees on the floor. We can have the most impressive ground support in the world, but our efforts will fail without proper air support. Approaching the need scattershot gave me an internal twitch; my heart craved a battle plan to systematically work through in prayer each month. As I consider my personal contribution to this cause of lifting up the 1% (or, as I affectionately call it, One Up), I’m committing to dedicate 1% of my day—basically 15 minutes—to pray for:

1. A clean, graceful life that attracts the lost
2. Personal preparation and repentance
3. Deep love for the lost, seeing them as the Lord does
4. Patient endurance: willingness to work at God’s pace, not my own
5. The Spirit to start softening people to His voice
6. God to draw the lost to salvation
7. Divine appointments and opportunities
8. Clear presentations of the gospel
9. Wisdom in conversations: spiritual sensitivity and words in my mouth
10. Boldness in conversations: spiritual power and strength in my heart
11. Humility in conversations: spiritual integrity and faith in my Father
12. No distractions in conversations
13. The enemy to lose his grip on the hearers
14. Obstacles to lose their grip on the hearers
15. Any confirmations needed for someone’s conversion
16. A sense of urgency in evangelism
17. A desire for excellence in evangelism
18. A greater burden to pray about evangelism
19. Desperate dependence on the Lord
20. Salvation of the lost who have done harm (against me or others)
21. Salvation of the lost who have done good (to me or others)
22. Salvation of the greatest, those with seats of power
23. Salvation of the least, my community’s most vulnerable
24. Salvation of those closest to me—family, friends, coworkers
25. Salvation of those farthest from me—most different ideologically
26. Transformed lives and families
27. No discouragement with apparent failures
28. Gratitude for every bit of harvest (whether small wins or mighty victories)
29. The church’s readiness to embrace and equip new believers
30. Vision to press on in prayer and witness

I aim to rotate through this list every month, pleading the windows of heaven open. How I long to see the spiritual sheepfold of Northeast Connecticut, once so sparse and bedraggled, grow with exponential vitality until it swells to burst the fence. That is the goal. And this is the strategy. I’ve spelled it out here for your own use—join us in petitioning the throne of grace for Putnam, or saturate your own corner of the world with the power of prayer. And then go get muddy alongside the Shepherd.