Yesterday morning I was sitting on my kitchen floor looking through a stack of cookbooks to find daisy petals. Although I thought I knew which cookbook I had put them in to be pressed and dried six weeks prior, they were not in the expected place, so I was leafing through every book on the shelf to find them. As it turned out, they ended up being in the book I thought I’d placed them, but another discovery was made during the search, which is worth sharing this morning.
One of the cookbooks was a Christmas gift to my grandparents in 1977. It is an interesting mix of testimonies and recipes from such well-known Christian women as Dale Evans Rogers, Ethel Barrett, and Ruth Bell Graham. Tucked in between the pages was a paper cut from a church bulletin, with a line in my Grandma Ballard’s handwriting:
“This my assignment too.” Those words were penned over forty years ago, yet they reach across the decades to find resonance with every TGP team member, for this is why we each signed up to pray. There is a cause and commission so vital that it stirs the hearts of those who love Jesus to do what they can to make Him known in every place. “From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same the LORD’s name is to be praised.” (Psalm 113:3) Amen, may it ever be.
My grandma never had the opportunity to take an overseas mission trip, yet in more ways then can be elaborated here, her influence for the kingdom of God continues to reach places her feet never traveled. She was the baby girl referenced in last Sunday’s TGP post on Hoyt, Colorado, and, similar to what was spoken of Abel in Hebrews 11:4, she “being dead still speaketh.”
When I read the page above, I immediately thought of you all. Thank you for likewise taking up the mantle of prayer for Jesus to be known to the peoples of the world. I hope that reading both my grandma’s words and the printed poem and paragraph are an encouragement to each of you. Additionally, let us be challenged by the fact that our lives have the potential to encourage others long after we’re gone, as illustrated by the random finding of a paper yesterday morning.
I Corinthians 15:58 – “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
“For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.”
1. Nevatim, Israel: Pray for the salvation of a pilot at the Israeli airbase in Nevatim, and for those suffering anxiety from Iran’s recent missile attacks to find stability and peace in Jesus.
2. Salisbury, Australia: Pray for each of Len and Anne Beadell’s descendants to have a personal relationship with Jesus, Who is the only Road from this world to the Father.
3. Your Choice: Please pray for a request you remember from the other cities featured this week:
Today concludes the water series that has been the focus of this month’s prayers. The following is a list of the lakes and rivers that have been featured, representing around a billion people who live in proximity to them:
Africa
Congo River
Lake Victoria
Asia
Lake Toba (Indonesia)
Lake Tiberias (Israel)
Europe
Black Sea (Europe and Asia)
Seine River (France)
Volga River (Russia)
North America
Mississippi River
Rio Grande River
Artibonite River (Haiti)
Lake Huron
Oceania/Antarctica
Lake Vostok (Antarctica)
Lake Victoria (Australia)
South America
Amazon River
Lago Argentino
Thank you for praying for the requests in each of these posts! There are many major lakes and rivers that did not get featured, so today, please pray for these things:
1. People living near a river or lake close to where you live.
2. People living near any freshwater body you want to pray for from a different part of the world.
3. That the Word of God would be widely available to people living near China’s Yangtze River. It is earth’s longest river that is completely contained in one nation, and the third longest river there is in the world. A third of China’s population – 400 million souls – live within the Yangtze’s drainage basin.
Revelation 22:1,17
“And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.”
GOOD NEWS LETTER!🙏📖🎊🎉🎶🎊🎶🎊🎉🎶🎊🎉 We are on our way home from the Junior Class mission trip. It was so beautiful to see how God used the students. They were so engaged, attentive to the children and their families. Our students led 13 children and young teens to Christ and we saw 12 to 14 PARENTS & GRANDPARENTS followed JESUS yesterday afternoon by giving their lives to him! Thank you for praying for us! 🙏🎉💙
“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.”
The rotation of continents and church jobs is now complete, so today is an opportunity for two things. The first is to review / pray for again the previously mentioned categories and locations of people:
European Pastors
North American Church Custodians
Oceanian Discipleship / Sunday School Teachers
South American Church Musicians
African Deacons
Asian Believers
With today being Palm Sunday, it is also an opportunity to pray that the Father will find many of His children genuinely worshipping Him throughout the world today. That is something all believers should do, regardless of what continent they live on or particular church role they have.
Below is a link to a Palm Sunday poem I wrote last year. The last section is my favorite. Through His enablement alone, may it always be true of each TGP team member.
“And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.”
1. TGP: Pray for more pray-ers to join us.
2. Rio Grande Valley Mission Trip: Pray for today’s gospel outreaches to bring forth fruit for eternity.
3. Your Choice: Please pray for a request you remember from any of this week’s other posts:
This picture hangs on my kitchen wall. It’s a page from a calendar of photographs of children from Peru, given to me Christmas of 2004. I don’t know who the boy is, but the look in his eyes stirs my soul. Children all over the world have that look in their eyes in a spiritual sense – hungry, wondering, hoping, not sure. I wish that I could walk up to each of them and tell them about Jesus. He’s the ultimate answer to their need. I wish I could give each of them a hug and a smile, look into their eyes, and tell them about the Bread of Life who loves them so very, very much.
The only way I know for one person to reach around the whole world is through prayer. In prayer, it is possible to make a difference in more places than our feet could ever travel in a lifetime. Jesus said to pray for the Lord of the Harvest to thrust out laborers into His harvestfield (Matt. 9:36-38). Each of us are working in our particular corner of that field, but we can pray for the whole field a piece at a time. Indeed, we must pray, for the Savior is worth knowing by every person, but “the night comes, when no man can work” (John 9:4).
Today marks three years since TGP’s first prayer post. I sincerely thank all of you who have prayed with us, from the first person who signed up to the most recent. The grand goal at the beginning was that TGP would have 1440 people praying a minute each day, because that would add up to a solid 24 hours worth of prayer every day for whatever the particular requests / location were. Though we are far from that goal, only the Lord knows how many cumulative hours of prayer have been offered on behalf of the peoples of the world coming to know Jesus. To God be the glory for this work to advance His kingdom! Occasionally, we hear about a specific answer to our prayers, and we trust that many more times, those visible answers will be waiting for us in heaven. Let us keep praying!
In 2016, five years before TGP started, I wrote a poem called “On Mission to Serve Jesus.” That was a phrase embroidered on a backpack given to me when I participated in a summer internship program helping a church plant in June of 1999. Wherever God has us today, we are disciples on the most important mission of all time – loving and serving Jesus. I’m putting a link to that poem here from my poetry blog, and I hope that it will be an encouragement to you:
For our prayer request today, please join me in praying that more pray-ers will join our team. If you think of people who might be interested, please tell them about Targeted Global Prayer. Any questions can be directed to targetedglobalprayer@gmail.com, or they can go to the website itself to find out more and sign up.
Thank you again for praying! “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Timothy 1:17)
