Praying from Habakkuk

During the worship at our Church Together meeting on Tuesday I felt God speak to me through a relatively unlikely source: Habakkuk!

Chapter three, verse two to be precise. It just would not leave me, as a prayer for today, for what is stirring in my heart.

² LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.

What a prayer!

I was stirred.

I have been thinking about the seminars I heard at the Together on a Mission Conference last week as noted here, here and here.

Hundreds of Churches planted across France, larger resource Churches growing into the thousands, 3,000,000 people having their lives changed by the gospel of Jesus.

And I want to pray:

² LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.

I think of Wesley and Whitefield travelling in the UK and America, preaching in the towns, villages and cities. I read of huge crowds and huge responses to the gospel of Jesus. I see churches springing up in towns, villages, cities all across the nation in a move of God that could not be contained.

And I want to pray:

² LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.

I think of the Welsh Revival and the stories we read about thousands being saved, and the pit ponies being confused because they no longer understood commands now the men did not swear at them! Churches springing up all over a nation as the gospel was preached and thousands came to faith.

And I want to pray:

² LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.

I read about and see in practice the Church in South Korea where the Churches have stayed faithful in prayer and in the gospel and the whole nation is influenced by a strong and vibrant Church, sending thousands of missionaries and harnessing revival not into a decade but into a century of Church growth and gospel proclamation.

And I want to pray:

² LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.

So we did pray.

For each other. In our homes. At our place of work. With our families. With our friends. Where we go to have fun. Where God has placed us. Where we have the privilege of living as witnesses of Jesus, who has saved us.

I think of what we heard and saw last Sunday as just a glimpse of what God can do, and it makes me want to pray:

² LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.

So having been stirred I shared these things as a brief encouragement, and guess what?

We prayed.