Spiritual D-Day?

Today is June 6, 2013, 69 years since D-Day.

‘We are hard-pressed on every side . . . .’  (2 Cor. 4:8)

I must admit that I’m not much one for military metaphors. The New Testament never compares the church to an army.  And I don’t like it when American Christians equate the people of God, whether Old Testament Israel or New Testament church, with the United States, and even honor our military heroes in church. (Most cross-cultural workers I’ve talked to have the same struggles, by the way, though we tend to be very patriotic outside of worship services.)  The messages of the Old Testament prophets to Gentile nations—of which the U.S. is also one by way of application—were a little different from what we might expect.

But please don’t cut me off, even if you disagree with the above. The New Testament does tell individual Christians to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ (2 Tim. 2:3). And I do think there are some parallels to what soldiers have gone through and what our field workers experience, especially as they try to establish new ministries in unreached places. It does rather seem like sometimes we have a tendency to leave them stranded on the ‘beachheads’, exposed to enemy ‘machine-gun fire’ while we keep safe at home, busy with our own lives.

But it isn’t quite that simple, is it? Our lives in the West are full of challenges, too. We also feel ‘hard-pressed on every side’.  And then I read things like:

‘we should not pray for the work, because prayer is the work.’

That may be well-meant, but I don’t think it is quite accurate. I’ve often wished that my work would get done while I’m praying about it, but it doesn’t work that way. And if Martin Luther had so much to do that he had to get up earlier to pray, I think that at some point he had to either do less work, or die younger!

Pardon my skepticism—I'm pleading for more prayer, not less, but especially for more folks to take up the task of intercession for these servants of Christ who are in the enemy’s direct ‘line of fire.’ Most of them will tell you that the people among whom they serve are some of the most hospitable folks one will ever meet. But that does not mean that their eyes have been opened spiritually (see 2 Cor. 4:3-4), and it also does not mean that a few fanatics positioned in influential places cannot cause our workers, and (especially) those they reach out to, bodily/spiritual harm.

Right now I’m struggling, a) with the fact that ReachAcross has a number or workers who are taking on some very difficult challenges and b) they don’t really seem to have the prayer networks they need for what they are trying to accomplish.

Is intercessory prayer sometimes a bit like God’s ‘artillery fire’—the spiritual stealth bombing that weakens the enemy hold at key positions, so that his foot workers can function effectively, sharing the Gospel with individuals?

I don’t know, but even if some readers don’t like my use of figurative language, we still hope you will pray. Please let us know if we can send you further materials to help. There is a new prayer guide for South Asia that we would love to share with anyone who would like a copy (though we only have it in e-format).

God bless you on this (Allied) day of remembrance! I hope that, whatever their opinions on what I’ve written, God’s people will be allied in prayer.

US Director

P.S. I was able to spend a couple of hours in prayer yesterday, and afterwards I seemed to accomplish my ‘work’ more quickly and perhaps somewhat more easily. So probably Dr. Luther was right?