This time of year my children like to ask me what I want for Christmas. This year I asked for two things: to go and visit my aging parents who cannot come to see us, and for some great time together as a family. Of course we enjoy those two things every year, but that is what I want. I think I also asked for some new socks. Well, and an iphone J.
I really do not need anything, blessed with an amazing wife and the two greatest children a dad could ever want. But there are some specific things for which I am praying. Perhaps at this Christmas season you can join me in my prayer.
1. I pray for a Great Commission Resurgence to sweep across the American church, fueling a passion for a witness that is both biblical and effective. I pray we will see that following Jesus and telling others about Him is indeed a Wonderful Life.
2. I pray for a generation of young adults to be ignited with a passion for Jesus and a willingness to go, do, and be anything to which He calls them. I pray that God will raise up leaders who like young Rudolph and his red nose will lead both old and young to new days of effectiveness in ministry.
3. I pray for the cities of the West and the nations of the world, that our best and brightest will spend their lives there for the glory of God and the sake of the gospel. If Elf can walk from the North Pole to New York City, perhaps our children can go to the cities and the nations.
4. I pray for the unborn babies and the sexually confused among us (homosexuals, lesbians, transgenders, etc) that God will rescue them from a premature death on the one hand or the blindness of satan on the other. I also pray the Church will love all caught up in bondage, including young ladies who are cutters and young men in great despair. I pray the Church will not treat those caught in sin like the outcast toys in Rudolph’s story, but as precious people for whom Christ died.
5. I pray for families, so many in such disarray, to once again see the home as a place of worship rather than a place of selfish desire. I pray for Dads to be lovers of their wives and leaders of their children, and for moms to emulate a life bound up in Christ. I pray the attitude of Timmy in A Christmas Carol–”God bless us everyone”–will mark families more than the disposition of Scrooge.
6. I pray for the Lottie Moon Offering (SBC) and other missions offerings, that in a tough economic period believers will give more to the cause of missions than to any individual in their life. I pray for missionaries around the world separated from their biological families, that God will give them special fellowship with the family of God. I pray the obsession with stuff, where believers fight in malls for toys like scenes from a cheesy Christmas movie (like Schwarzenegger’s “Jingle All the Way”), will be replaced by an “Advent Conspiracy” giving to things that matter.
7. I pray for the young adults in high school and college who prepare to be butchers and bakers and candlestick makers (or other professions), that in every vocation they will live their lives as missionaries in a lost culture, and for God to call even more to vocational ministry to lead the church. I pray for church planters to be called and for current pastors to lead their churches to plant new churches. I pray for a missional resurgence.
8. I pray for new eyes, for me and for all to whom God gives influence. I pray we would not be like the Grinch, constantly complaining and griping about what we do not like, but instead be like the little Drummer Boy, giving our lives in service to the King. I pray we would see the world as Jesus does, and that our paradigms that may have worked in another time will be replaced by an understanding of how to take timeless truth to our world in a timely way.
9. I pray for an awareness of the urgency of the time, and that we would not waste our lives on trivial things when God has given us the greatest news ever told. I pray our urgency for the gospel would far surpass the urgency to get toys to children in Christmas shows like Rudolph and Elf.
10. Finally, I pray for peace. “Peace on earth, good will to men,” the angels promised. Too many of us who ought to know better seem intent on giving our lives to the five percent with which we disagree. Peace does not mean unity at all costs, or surrendering truth. But peace does come from the Prince of Peace. I pray for a 2009 that will be marked by Christlike affection and charity, by humility, and by a desire to honor God above people. Our God who spared not His only Son deserves from His children such sacrificial love for one another.
For what are you praying at this Christmas season? I would love to hear. And pray.
I pray not for material jobs, but for permanent employment.
I pray not for material things, but for permanent employment.