Prayer for our Missionaries:

The past two weeks at church have been a bit different than the typical sermons we hear.  My church has been participating in a missions’ conference where they host and hear from many of the missionaries we support throughout the globe.  Some of these are our local missionaries who work on our college campuses nearby ministering and guiding the local college students.  Some are a few states away doing God’s work through various projects or church plants, and then some our global missions who are spreading God’s Word throughout the world and the unreached people groups. 

I do enjoy hearing from the various missionaries.  I love getting to hear about their heart and their joy for spreading God’s Word.  I really enjoy getting to hear about their passion for the people they are serving, and the joyful moments where they have really seen God at work.  There are times I am a bit jealous.  I will be honest about this.  Sometimes I will feel the inadequacy in my own work, but I am continuing to work through my feelings on this.  

I don’t always do the best job supporting the local and global missionaries though.  I have a few local missionaries I support financially, most of these being my friends who are continuing to serve on our former college campus and the other local college campuses.  I am very proud of their work, and I am glad that our college ministry was such a calling for them.  However, I will be honest, when I say I don’t do the best job praying over their missions and the students they are meeting with on a regular basis.  This is the same for the global missionaries I know who need prayer for the work they are doing. 

I think I often forget the importance of prayer-especially when it comes to missions. Sometimes we can think of prayer especially in the case of missions as not being enough.  We aren’t really doing any good.  However, we can sometimes forget the work God can do, and He uses us, both in our actions and the ways we pray to God.  Praying to God over these missions is believing he can do the impossible work of leading millions to Christ. 

There are verses about praying over others.  One of them is James 5:16, which says, “”Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” I love this because it does remind us to pray for one another.  This can be praying for their health, prayer for their mental and emotional thoughts, and then lastly praying for their missions and their relationship with God. 

There are again two challenges for this week.  The first is to know the missions around you.  Are you aware of the missions going on in the world, or your area?  If you go to a church supporting missionaries, do you know much about them or their work?  Do you know about their prayer requests?  If not, spend a little more time getting to know about the missions around you or in the world.  Again, see if your church does support and sponsor some missionaries, and if so learn about them and their work.  Discover what their prayer requests are.  

Then the second challenge is to spend some time in prayer for missionaries.  This prayer can also include the prayer to God for a heart for nations.  This can be to open your heart to those who are spreading the word and to be fighters for them.  Maybe set a reminder on your phone or in your planner, just a way to remember on a regular basis, to pray for these missionaries.  I personally have gotten a schedule from my church to pray for 30 missionaries one day of the month and then rotate, and I am going to spend time doing this on a more regular basis. This can serve as a good reminder to keep them in my mind and heart. 

Lastly, I have two examples of missions I know about personally if you need help getting started in prayer for missionaries. One example is my friends Caleb and Oliva.  They are very dear friends. Caleb even graciously married me and Cole this past summer.  I knew he would do a great job at this.  Caleb and Olivia have been working diligently on University of Northern Iowa’s campus for the past few years.  We all went to college there and were in the same Christian ministry.  Using their own experiences of finding God on a college campus, they have dedicated these last few years to ministering to the young college students at UNI.  This is a great time to find young people who are starting out in their individual lives and teaching them about God, so that they may become young Christ followers.  It is an important age, and I need to remember to pray for their ministry to these young individuals. 

Then their other example is a mission I am incredibly passionate about, and this is the International Justice Mission which seeks to advocate, raise funds, and rescue many, many people from Human trafficking all over the world.  This is both those who need to be rescued from slave labor as well as sex trafficking.  This can even be sex trafficking online some kids and adults are forced to be a part of.  I have always loved supporting this organization through giving them funds monthly and participating in Dressember, but I do need to do a better job praying over this work being done throughout the whole year.