Pray for Your Shepherds

The last Sunday before my sabbatical leave began, I preached about the Sabbath rest that God desires for us all to experience, and about the necessity of trusting God in order to experience that rest.  We saw that a “Sabbath heart” is a heart that trusts God and rests in his constant love, grace, care and provision. 

Fast-forward a couple of weeks and this trust is being tested.  One of the books I am reading is Ed Welch’s Side by Side:  Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love.  The essence of the book is that all of us are both needy and needed.  Welch says, “we find that God is pleased to use ordinary people, ordinary conversations, and extraordinary and wise love to do most of the heavy lifting in his kingdom.  The basic idea is that those who help best are the ones who both need help and give help.  A healthy community is dependent on all of us being both.  We all need help – that's simply a part of being human.  And we are all helpers- this too is part of being human.”

The first section of the book goes into the design and details of what it means to be needy.  I’ll not take the time to give a full review (that will come soon), but Welch makes two points that have recently weighed heavy on my heart.  I will summarize those two points and apply them with a situation in our church family that currently needs your help – your prayers. 

Welch points out the obvious: “Life is hard”.  That's not a complaint  - it is just the facts of what it means to live in this fallen world.  And our hearts are busy – busy with being the spiritual center of our lives and busy with the emotions, affections and fears that can occupy our hearts.  Add to all this the fact that hard circumstances are a constant reality continually faced by all of us and we are constantly faced with opportunities to say “help!” to the Lord and say “help!” to other people.

“Wailing on our beds is easy and natural” writes Welch.  “But crying out to the Lord is spiritual – it is a gift from the Spirit – but it is also the most human thing we can do.  Real life begins with, “Help, I need Jesus!” (p50)

Not only do we pray, but we ask others to pray too.  “If we desire to be perceived as competent and in control, we will not ask for prayer.  If we know that humans, by nature, are spiritually needy, and God’s plan is that we both turn to him and to other people for help, we will ask for prayer.” (p 60)

So I am asking for prayer.

I share all this as background to a pressing prayer need that I am aware of and want to share with our church family.  I will not share individual names and individual circumstances yet (that time may come), but I will share the overall needs and ask for our church family to “help” by praying. 

Within our church leadership team (Pastors, Elders and Deacons) there are critical situations that face some of these men and their families.  These needs include very serious medical issues for these men, or their wives, and/or their families.  These needs include pressing employment issues.  These needs include wisdom for pressing personal decisions and pressing decisions concerning our church.  These needs include the reality of spiritual warfare. 

While these needs are physical, financial, and personal –  at the core they are all spiritual.  The spiritual well-being of these brothers, their families and our church family are at stake.   Our enemy would like nothing better than to attack, discourage and divide.  Again, Ed Welch writes, “when suffering knocks on someone’s door, Satan too comes knocking.  Life is a war zone, and Satan is the enemy strategist.  He waits for those times when people are in the wilderness – vulnerable, desperate, and God seemingly far away or absent all together.  That’s when Satan’s questions about God’s character....” (p. 123)

God promises in Jeremiah 3: 15, “And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.”   Satan’s counter-strategy is to strike the shepherds and scatter the sheep.  Please pray for those God has set over as shepherds and servants of the Body of Christ here at Westwood.  (Zech 13:7 & Jn 16:32)

·       Pray for physical healing where it is needed – and for spiritual perspective and peace in these physical needs                (2 Cor. 4:16-18) 

·       Pray for comfort and confidence in Christ as these brothers and their families walk by faith through trying times.  (2 Cor. 1:3-4)

·       Pray for faith- for these brother’s hearts to trust and rest in the promises, presence and power of God. (Rom 5: 3-4)

·       Pray for vigilance and spiritual alertness, for these brothers to be sober-minded and watchful for the lies and deceptions of our enemy (Eph 6:10-ff; I Pet. 5:8-9)

·       Pray for the protection, provision, power and peace of our Chief Shepherd to be poured out on the under-shepherds of our congregation and on all those who are a part of this church family (Ps 23, Ez 34:15-16; Jn 10: 7-18; Heb 13:20-21)

Ed Welch summarizes these points: “Our task is simple: ask for prayer and then let those who have prayed for us know what God has done.  It is simple, but it is also a powerful intrusion of the Spirit into the everyday life of the church.” (p64)

Pray for this intrusion.