Birthed with a Burden
The great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon was once confronted by a young woman in great distress over the burden she bore for her lost mother. Her burden for her mother’s soul was so great that it drove her to her knees both day and night. She feared that being so heavily burdened might be an indication of the improbability of her mother’s salvation.
After hearing of her God-given burden for her mother’s soul, Spurgeon asked the young lady about the spiritual condition of her father. The young woman informed the great preacher that her father, just like her mother, was lost and without Christ. She added, however, that she wasn’t burdened to pray for her father’s soul like she was her mother’s. In light of this revelation, Spurgeon assured the young lady that she should be far more concerned with the improbability of her father’s salvation than with the improbability her mother’s.
Prayer for the lost is birthed with a burden. It begins when God burdens us to pray for some lost soul. When we’re burdened by God to pray for the lost we can be assured that our prayers will not go unheard or unheeded. They will prove to be of great avail. If they would not, God would not have burdened us to pray.
Sample Prayer:
Speak, Lord, your servant listens. Direct my prayer according to your will, not my own. Burden my heart to pray for those lost souls for whom you want me to pray. And may the prayers I pray for them, birthed by the burdens you give to me, prove to be of great avail toward their salvation! Amen.
Don Walton
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