"Tell me someone is praying for us!"

When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly —Matthew 6:6

Sheppard family - 1997

Several times in our missionary career, as Liberia or the Ivory Coast was falling apart politically, I could feel the deep danger around us even more than usual. In those moments I would grab Mark's arm and demand, "Tell me people are praying for us!" He would dutifully oblige because, while he didn't have the same need to have it said aloud, in times like these both of us were clinging tenaciously to the hope that someone somewhere was praying for us. In those moments we understood that prayer was our greatest need. 

In our action-oriented Western culture, praying seems counter-intuitive. Yet while it can feel like "doing nothing," prayer is in reality the most important thing we can do. 

Oswald Chambers, in his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, says it clearly.

Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “. . . pray to your Father who is in the secret place. . . .” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.

We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. 

In the last week I have felt overwhelmed with sadness for the state of the world, particularly those in Syria and Egypt who cannot escaped the horror that has become their lives. (Tap here.) I have asked God to show me what I can do to help and the same answer keeps coming back. Pray.

Bereaved Syrian man holding child (Image public domain)

And so I share this burden with you. If each of us would take as little as five to ten minutes to go to a quiet place and pray for these people, it would honor God and make a difference for them. The following requests can be a launching point.

1. Let us pray that those who have not yet heard the salvation message as given in the Bible will be told—and find new life and comfort in God.
2. Let us pray that God would meet the daily needs of the suffering people. 
3. Let us pray for government authorities to have a clear understanding of the politics behind the unrest so those considering intervention, whether political or humanitarian, will do so wisely.

Often after our own dire situations in politically unstable Liberia or the Ivory Coast, we would find that indeed someone was specifically praying for us at the very time we so desperately needed it. Today as a desperate wife lays a hand on her husband's arm and says, "Tell me someone is praying for us!" I want to be the one remembering to do that most important work of all.  

See Prayer: If You Will Ask.
See Learning to Love the Bible.
See On Making Jonah a Sheppard.