Interceding for the lost

BY KIRSTIE SKOGERBOE

Each night, my husband and I pray for people we love who are far from God. A few have blatantly rejected Him. Others have drifted or stumbled away. We've written all their names in a notebook, hoping that one day we can cross out each one as an answered prayer.

it can be hard to keep hoping, though. Some of the names in our notebook belong to people entrenched in atheism or bound up in toxic sins. Some have deserted the Church in pain, anger, or apathy; some weren't even raised in it. Though I've seen God answer prayers for repentance, many identical prayers seem to have no perceivable effect. Will my prayer change anything? I wonder, sometimes, even as I pray. Is it likely he will come to faith? What will it take? Of all the people who refuse God, why would she be one who repents? Will God respond?

To most of these questions, I have no answer—all but the last. Scripture not only tells us that God hears our prayers, but also that He seeks the salvation of those who are perishing. Jesus told His followers that He “came to seek and save the lost,” and to be a doctor to the sick (Luke 19:10; Matthew 9:12). Nor has He chosen an arbitrary day to return; He waits for the purpose of salvation. The Apostle Peter writes, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (II Peter 3:9). How many had hope for the man on the cross at Jesus’ side? Yet not even a dying, crucified sinner was beyond His reach (Luke 23:42-43).

These truths comfort me as I pray. They calm my questions, even if they don’t answer them directly. Since God has said He longs to save all, I know Christ intercedes with me—and this keeps me interceding (Hebrews 7:25).

We don’t know the future of those for whom we pray, but we know the heart of the One who does. Dane Ortlund quotes the theologian Richard Sibbes: “When [Christ] saw the people in misery, his bowels yearned within him; the works of grace and mercy in Christ, they come from his bowels first” (Gentle and Lowly, 27). Jesus’ innermost being is not tepid toward sinners. No, as the psalmist reminds us, He is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (103:8).

May that mercy, patience, and love strengthen our own hearts to pray.

Skogerboe, a 2018 graduate of the Free Lutheran Bible College, Plymouth, Minn., lives in Orange, Calif.