Rope-Holders

We are celebrating the 100th issue of Rope-Holders this week. Just how we’re celebrating we’re not sure, but we are celebrating none the less. For two years we have been sending out weekly requests so that many of you can hold the ropes of prayer at the Throne of Grace. I continue to be amazed that within minutes those living thousands of miles away can know our specific needs. It hasn’t been so long ago that this communication would literally take months.

While “Rope-Holders” is a prayer bulletin, it’s also much more. It is a group of people who are our praying family. We longed for and asked the Lord to give us intercessors who would labor for us and with us in prayer. Those who seek the holiness of God in their lives and whose hearts pant for Him like the deer pants for the water brook. Those who believe that in this day God answers the prayer of faith and boldly approach His Throne expecting answers. Those who understand that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. Those who treat prayer as a wartime walkie-talkie. Those who know that the only way we can go forward is on our knees. Those who depend on God because they know that it isn’t by might nor by power but by His Spirit that victory is won.

Recently I have been reading Mountain Rain, a biography of James O. Fraser, pioneer missionary to the Luis of China. Because he believed that Christians at home could do as much for foreign missions as those on the field, he wrote to his mother asking her to get a group of like-minded friends, whether few or many, to join them in prayer. To that group he gave the challenge, “What I covet more than anything else is earnest believing prayer…I am trying to roll the main responsibility of this prayer-warfare on you, I want you to take the burden of these people upon your shoulders, I want you to wrestle with God for them.”

With rejoicing we thank the Lord for a similar group of like-minded friends who have become our rope-holders.