Tuesday Prayer: 51

This is my 51st 'Tuesday Prayer' post. As we come towards the year of prayer quotes and ideas on this blog (broadly when we hit Week 52, though of course its taken longer than an actual year) it struck me that it is hard to pray for the things we feel we can't change, or are disconnected from.

I recently came across a fascinating book of essays on Prayer, edited by Don Carson, and produced by the Theological Commission of the World Evangelical Fellowship, titled 'Teach us to Pray: Prayer in the Bible and the World'. I particularly enjoyed Myung Hyuk Kim's contribution, 'Lessons from the Prayer Habits of the Church in Korea', which had a fascinating section on revival and prayer. I found Kim's comments on the necessity of prayer for ministry to be instructive;

"prayer is indispensable for the success of ministry. When a minister keeps engaging in prayer his congregation relies on and confides in him. Through prayer one is made confident about discerning the will of God. Indispensable to the powerful message is prayer. Any message prepared without prayer does little. It is the same with visitation and evangelism.Prayer brings forth a ministry of love. In spite of many hindrances to prayer ministers and believers should do their utmost to pray. Prayer leads one's ministry into victory over satanic power."

I think this is something that everyone, whether a professional or not, who engages in Christian ministry needs to hear. Certainly I needed to hear it. Prayer shapes and directs us into God's heart in order to show the love of God to this broken world. Prayer has untold benefits - which is why the devil is so keen to derail our prayers!

The language around 'ministers', I think, can be taken to apply to all of those who follow Jesus and seek to serve him. But what do you think? Does Kim's challenge resonate with you, or do you find it abhorrent and unobtainable?

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Don't forget to check out the previous posts in the series, featuring quotes from Tom Wright, John Wimber, Richard Foster and Don Carson, the great J. C. Ryle and theologians Alister McGrath and James K. A. Smith. Since then, I've shared quotes from Justin Welby, E.M. Bounds, Vineyard Pastor Ken Wilson, C. S. Lewis,  Norwegian O'Hallesby, Paul Miller, John Piper. Recently, we've heard Matthew Henry, Charles Finney, Andrew Murray, Tim Chester, Vaughan Roberts, Oliver O'Donovan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and John Bunyan. Then we got rather retro, with quotes from Church Fathers John Chrysostom and Tertullian, before returning to more recent thinkers with Rowan Williams, Mike Reeves and Peter Jackson and Chris Wright and Andrew Case, R. C. Sproul, and (representing a slight change of tack) the Westminster Confession. Recently we considered Karl Barth, and Donald Macleod, Mary Prokes,  J. C. Ryle (again!), Andrew Murray,  Martyn Lloyd Jones, Hudson Taylor, recently about Ffald-y-Brenin,  some of my own words, and my friend Nick Parish, Joyce Huggett. More recently I've shared a prayer of remembrance from the C of E, some of the words of Paul, an Anglican Prayer for Advent, Peter Lewis, Tim Keller, and most recently my friend Robin Ham, the Book of Common Prayer, 1 Timothy 2, and a prayer from my recent eBook on Politics.