Prayer Blazing

“At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison”—Colossians 4:3.

Outside of my house is snow. Bunches and bunches of snow. In order to get my car out of the driveway, I need to do some shoveling. Each time I take a shovel full of snow, I’m one step closer to my car. Each heave, each movement, and each time I dig the shovel deep into the snow makes the path bigger and wider. Anyone who has ever had to shovel snow will tell you that it’s work, hard, backbreaking work. That’s how prayer is. Prayer is work. And it’s through prayer that the path is cleared so that God may work. The salvation of souls is God’s job, but He has recruited us to participate in the task of world evangelization (Matthew 28:19). It’s a divine task that requires divine resources, because our battle is one that is not against flesh and blood. As Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12,  

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Satan is at work blinding the hearts and minds of unbelievers, and he is doing his job very well. The Apostle Paul knew this when he wrote,  

“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God”—2 Corinthians 4:4. 

All over the world men and women are blinded to Christ, living in darkness, unable to comprehend who He is, or turn to Him for salvation. How then can they be reached? How can this divine task be accomplished? Paul knew the answer. That’s why he wrote,

“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds”—2 Corinthians 10:4. 

And what are these divine resources? There are many, but one of the most powerful resources is prayer. God has given us the power of prayer to melt the iciest, most frozen hearts of unbelief. When we pray, we work, but in doing so we enlist God’s help. We shovel, knowing that as we do, we are getting closer and closer to our destination. We are blazing a trail of prayer for the Gospel. That’s why Paul requested prayer. He was asking for reinforcements. He was asking for prayer to come in to shovel the snow of unbelief so that the Word might break through their hearts. That’s why he wrote, “pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word.” It was through the prayers of God’s people for Paul that the snow was shoveled away so that the Gospel might take root and bear fruit. And it’s through our prayer shoveling that God will bring the hardest unbeliever into the Kingdom of God.

My brother or sister, I pray that you continue to shovel in prayer. Know that it can be painful, backbreaking work, but it is effective (James 5:16), and God will use it to break the hardest of hearts for His glory and their salvation. Amen.