This resolution of Daily United Prayer is based on An Humble Attempt, originally put forward by Jonathan Edwards in 1748. Its design is to encourage God's people in the duty of united extraordinary prayer; setting aside some time every day to pray for the revival of His church and the advancement of Christ's kingdom in our homes, in our churches, in our nation, and in the world.
"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence." 1 Cor 1:27-29.
God uses the foolish, the weak, the base (humble), the despised, and the nobodies. That's who He chooses to use. He does not use the proud. In fact, He resists the proud (James 4:6). He does not use the strong. He does not use mighty. Why? The reason is in verse 29. "That no flesh should glory in his presence." If God were to use a mighty man of means, power, and influence to do a great work for Him then the tendency would be to look to the MAN and say, "Well of course the great work was accomplished, look at who God used." Doesn't bring much glory to God, does it? But if God were to do a great work through the instrumentality of a nobody, it would be impossible to ascribe any glory to the weak vessel. ALL glory would necessarily have to go to God.
Half the time, our problem is that we don't think ourselves to be truly weak, truly in need. We're not desperate enough. We have our "backup plans" or our "hoarded resources." We are not like the importunate widow (Luke 18) or that friend in the night (Luke 11) who had nothing and were desperate. In the case of the friend in the night, it's interesting that the Lord says, "I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth." Luke 11:8. This directs us to his desperation and need rather than to the strength or merit of his friendship. The same could be said about the widow. She was a widow and as such had nothing. She had no pull, no power, no persuasion. But she had one thing—she was desperate. And her desperation forced her to cry day and night until she was avenged of her adversary. Desperation drives us to importunity. The dictionary definition of "importunity" is: persistence, especially to the point of annoyance. This is exactly what we need. But this level of persistence can only come when we ourselves have a deep sense of our need.
God uses the weak to confound the mighty. The only prerequisite is that we truly understand our need for Him. If we don't really need Him, no amount of "perceived persistence" in our praying will do us any good because we will, in the back of our minds, always feel that we have another solution. Paul Washer has a wonderful 15-minute meditation along these very lines that I would highly recommend you listen to.
Do not despise afflictions or trials in your life. God is creating weakness in us that drives us to desperation, that drives us to the Lord in prayer.
DAILY UNITED PRAYER unitedprayer.net
Mon-Fri @ 12pm EDT // Sat @ 10am EDT
We invite you to join our dedicated and earnest group of praying participants of all ages from around the world that meet every day over Zoom to pray. At the start of each prayer call, a different individual will bring a brief Scriptural meditation. Here's the most recent: