How to Pray for MissionariesMuestra

Day  7

PRAY FOR COURAGE (Eph 6:19-20)

Missionaries often face difficult and even frightening situations. Laurie and Ronda Hall, as a young married couple, went to Papua New Guinea where they served for many years as missionaries. Ronda once told me of a time when Laurie personally intervened between hundreds of enraged warriors from warring tribes. 

Laurie, a wiry, quiet man, deliberately walked right into the melee between the rows of angry warriors stamping their feet and brandishing shields and spears. Using a megaphone, he urged them to stop fighting and to love one another as Jesus taught us to do. One by one they began to lay down their weapons. ‘We have no strength to fight now,’ they said. Three years later, when Laurie visited that area, the same men told him they were now brothers in Christ. They recalled their original encounter as ‘the fight that God stopped’.

Ronda said, ‘I didn’t know if I would ever see Laurie again.’ With quiet courage he had stepped in to bring reconciliation.

In many parts of the world, the lives of missionaries are constantly at risk. I spoke not long ago to a group of Christian Aid workers in the Middle East. In 2002, their leader was arrested with a few colleagues and they were incarcerated and shunted from prison to prison in fear for their lives. Finally, there was a dramatic last-minute rescue. Today, years later, they continue to work in that same area, dangerous as it is. 

When the first apostles were threatened with death, they prayed for confidence and courage to go on evangelizing (Act 4:29). Paul preached boldly at Damascus (Act 9:27), so boldly that the reaction caused him to flee for his life. He spoke courageously in Jerusalem and again found himself facing death (Act 9:29). He and his companions taught fearlessly in Iconium where there was bitter reaction and an attempt was made to stone them (Acts 14:4). In Ephesus, he preached with courage for two years until people everywhere heard the message—and once again he was forced out of town (Act 19:8-10; 20:1). There was no doubt that Paul was a brave man. 

Yet later, now in prison in Rome, he wrote to the Ephesian church, many of whom must have witnessed how boldly he had ministered there, and asked them twice to pray that whenever he spoke, he would continue to do so fearlessly (Eph 6:19-20). Was Paul afraid deep down? Very likely. But he knew he could not let this stop him. Acting courageously, he said, was simply the right thing to do (Eph 6:19-20). 

Merrilyn Teague served in Papua New Guinea for twenty-five years. She told me that the worst danger she faced was travel on perilous roads, ‘especially, on the side of a mountain with a steep drop into a raging river, where your jeep inches along little by little, at a snail's pace, your  driver calling out to the Lord, and the descent is made safely to the village; or you cross a wooden bridge made of un-nailed logs of timber, the wheels spinning as the driver speeds across.’

 Not all missionaries nowadays face life-threatening dangers, but many do. In any case, there are always uncertainties, doubts, criticisms, insults, threats and the like. We need to pray for those who serve in needy places that they will always do so boldly, fearlessly and courageously. They need us to wrestle with them in the contest for the kingdom.  

What next?

• It has been said that the need for courage only applies to people who are scared. Why is this so? 

• How does Prov 24:10 apply to this? 

• As well as praying for missionaries who may need more courage, what could you do for them to embolden them?