Prayer Card Lottery

Over the last couple of years we have collected a lot of friends who are missionaries. Eventually their prayer cards took over the refrigerator and a bulletin board. Although they were in our sight regrettably they were not often in our prayers. So, the other day I decided to make a radical move and take them all down. Now we each draw one from the stack during our family devotions. Our children have mischievously dubbed it our prayer card lottery but thankfully it has put prayer back into the prayer card.

The impetus for our idea was actually born a couple of summers ago when we were in candidate orientation. One of our trainers told of an elderly couple who prayed for 200 missionaries. It seems they both had a box of 100 cards and after breakfast they would pray for 50 each. Then after lunch they would pray for the remaining 50 in their boxes. And if that wasn’t Herculean enough, after supper they would pray up into the night for all 200 again! I have a sneaky suspicion that this elderly couple has been greatly used to spread a passion for Christ to the world even though they probably have never set foot in another country.

Being a laborer in the harvest is never out of reach for anyone who takes the time to pray. At any age, at any stage of life, with any limitation we have opportunity to advance His glory among the nations? What stories will be told in heaven of the victories won by those who triumphed on bended knee?

"Away in foreign fields, they wondered how
Their simple word had power -
At home, some Christians, two or three, had met
To pray an hour.
We are always wondering- wondering how,
Because we do not see
Someone - perhaps unknown and far away -
On bended knee." -Unknown