...been reading a book from an old seminary professor on the prayers of Paul. These words caught my pastoral heart:

"Paul is a man who dreams dreams; who envisages new needs and opportunities, and these are carefully tied to his own prayer life and to the prayers he solicits from others... There are several ... who get so bogged down on relatively picky points related to their health, prosperity, or better, the challenges of the next Vacation Bible School or the fickleness of a teenaged son that they utterly lose any sense of the sweep and direction of ministry. They do not dream dreams; they never really pray for revival; they never envisage the potential next phase of ministry and the steps that could be taken to get from here to there...

Even so, if we do not dream dreams and envisage what might be, it is unlikely we shall ever pray for them or work toward them. We shall spend our lives getting through each day's work as it comes up. How much better it is, wherever possible, to tie our immediate concerns to the larger possibilities of expanding ministry...

Paul's prayer is nothing other than a concern for the gospel itself and for its extension in a needy world. Here we would do well to remember the frequently quoted words of E.M. Bounds: 'One of the constitutional forces of the gospel is prayer. Without prayer, the gospel can neither be preached effectively, promulgated faithfully, experienced in the heart, nor be practiced in the life. And for the very simple reason that by leaving prayer out of the catalogue of religious duties, we leave God out, and His work cannot progress without Him.' "

Lord, bring me to my knees more frequently. Put tears in my eyes that overflow from a passionate heart concerned with the eternal things. Remind me that when I don't pray, I leave you out, and when I leave you out, your work will not progress. Though I don't understand this mystery of 'limiting' a sovereign God by lack of prayer, I accept it as true for your word teaches it. Forgive me for not praying more. Forgive me for hesitancy in calling it sin. I want to dream of what you can do through us when we trust you and beseech you. And I want to be a man that spends his life doing so. Amen.