Is Prayer Important?

'C', a China-based co-worker. Posted on 29 June 2009.

When we head for the mission field, many of us imagine that we will soon be busy doing amazing works for God, seeing lives transformed and even whole communities changed with the power of the Gospel. But then we arrive and really begin to dig into language learning and adapting to a different culture, and we discover that this life-giving change often comes much more slowly than expected. In the effort to touch more lives and see this change come more quickly, we can easily get lost in doing many good deeds, and lose sight of the importance of building a firm foundation. We all know that Jesus is our foundation, but what does that really mean? We must spend time with Him in prayer to experience the reality of Him as our Rock.

Take for example our prayer for the city. A small handful of us gather once every week to pray for the city; then there are others who due to schedule conflicts or time constraints pray for the city on their own at a different time. These weekly meeting times have become a real blessing to all of us as we are able to lift up the burdens of the local believers and non-believers to the Throne. We pray for more and more Chinese to come to know the Lord; for His healing, life and love to be poured out. We wait expectantly for Him to move. We often lift up the local Church, and pray that they will grow in wisdom, grace, and love - and especially that they will grow in having servant hearts, so that non-believers will truly see Christ in them. Praying these prayers for others has helped me to see myself more clearly, to see how much selfishness there is in me, and how much I need to grow in each and every one of these areas. It spurs me on to want to attain more of the high calling of God.

I have been reading lately about J. O. Fraser's life. As many of you will know, he was God's main instrument in opening the Lisu tribes to the Gospel, and as a result of his faithful, tireless work literally thousands of Lisu came into the Kingdom. How was he able to accomplish so much for God? He built everything he did on the firm foundation of prayer. I would like to quote from a letter he wrote to his prayer support team back in England: "I am not asking you just to give ‘help' in prayer as a sort of sideline, but I am trying to roll the main responsibility of this prayer-warfare on you. I want you to take the BURDEN of these people upon your shoulders. I want you to wrestle with God for them... We often speak of intercessory work as being of vital importance. I want to prove that I believe this in actual fact by giving my first and best energies to it, as God may lead." (from ‘Behind the Ranges')

Will you take up this burden to pray for the Lord's Chinese children?

How will you respond to this heart cry from one of our China-based co-workers? Will you commit to wrestle with God for the hearts of the Chinese people? Will you take the burden of the millions of unreached upon your shoulders? Contact your local AM-CCSM office to find out more about how you can fulfil this God-given responsibility to pray for those who have yet to know Him.