As believers, prayer can be such a difficult concept and discipline to truly grasp and understand. When we believe that God is sovereign, prayer can sometimes feel antithetical to His Sovereignty. We hesitate to assume that our prayers actually accomplish anything more than aligning us with God’s thoughts and ways. However Scripture paints a much bigger picture of prayer and of God who created prayer as a means for us to communicate with Him and to bring our needs and requests before Him. In James it states:
There are countless other verses on prayer including:
1 Chronicles 16:11– Look to the Lord and His Strength; Seek His face always.
Ephesiahs 6:18 -And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
Romans 12:12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
And while it is safe to assume that God uses many of our prayers to direct us in line with His ways and His will, there is an aspect to prayer that is beyond our finite understanding. If you watched the short video above you can see evidence of WHEN God’s people started praying about a specific Bibleless people group, at that very time God began to move in hearts and lives and a tremendous work was started to further Bible Translation.
I love the story about Sam in the video, who was only 5 years old when he began to fervently pray for a specific Bibleless people group. The very year he started praying, God started moving in the heart a translator and gave him a passion and a burden to go and serve that specific people group! The faith and prayers of one child created a ripple effect that resulted in the people of Easter Island getting the Bible in their language!
What if, many years ago someone like Sam began praying for the people of Papua New Guinea and God used those prayers instrumentally when we received our call to missions. It’s more than just coincidence that Wojtek and I each received a call to missions the same year at the age of 14 and 18, but on different continents before we even knew one another.
What if… We had a team of people like Sam and the others in the video who actively engaged in intercessory prayer for our ministry with Wycliffe in PNG. What mountains will be moved between now and when we leave to raise up our Partnership Team? What wisdom will the Lord give us and opportunities for ministry we will have as a result of faithful fervent prayer? I wish I had the insight to see the ripples of impact prayer is and will have on our Wycliffe ministry and for the people of Papua New Guinea.
Your prayers make a difference! God hears you and He delights in when you spend time talking with Him and sharing your requests with Him. As we prepare to go to Papua New Guinea we are earnestly searching for a team of people who will step forward and say YES to praying for our family and our ministry regularly. We have seen first hand how powerful this is and we wouldn’t dare GO without the power of prayer behind us. If you feel called by the Lord to participate in our Wycliffe ministry as our prayer partners please let us know you’d like to be on our prayer team!
And as much as we appreciate your prayers and need prayer warriors as part of our ministry team, we also are honored to be able to lift your requests up before the throne as well. Shoot us an email if we can be praying for you this week!
Z Family Goes Global 