An Encouragement to Pray & Work for the Kingdom

Just a few thoughts that I hope might serve as an encouragement to prayer: I ran across some news a few days ago that showed me how God has been working to answer some prayers that I prayed seventeen years ago. Sometimes it takes years for prayers to be answered and for Kingdom-seeds to grow, but remember in the meantime that none of those labors are in vain. Nearly two decades ago, I went to do mission service in Sudan, which at that time was under a violent Islamist regime that was fighting genocidal wars against Christians and indigenous peoples in the south and west of the country. I was there to help launch the development of some basic linguistic tools for Sudanese Arabic, which, it was hoped, would enable other programs and missionaries to come in and do their work. While I was living there in Khartoum, I walked through the city and prayed every day for God to change that country dramatically for the sake of the gospel. I didn't see any immediate results of those prayers. But now, nearly two decades later, I can look back and see a Sudan where the Islamist regime has fallen, where its wars against its own people have largely ended, and where Christians can, at least for now, worship openly instead of in secret. All those things are breathtaking answers to prayer, and dramatic changes from the Sudan I knew. But there's more: earlier this week, I ran across this article, which says that Sudanese Arabic is now being used as a Bible-translation "hub language" to provide Scripture for 80 unreached people groups in that country--and it's a pretty good bet that they're using some of the very linguistic tools that I helped to develop back in 2004. It's hard to fully explain just what a delight this is for me--more than any of the books I've written or academic projects I've done, this work for Sudan is close to my heart, and to see that my work and my prayers are being used as part of something extraordinary--it feels almost unbelievable. But friends, unbelievable things are what happen when we pray and work for the Kingdom. We may not see the answers immediately, but that doesn't mean that God isn't moving behind the scenes. What seeds are you planting right now, in prayer and in work, that God might use to raise a harvest in the years to come?