Carrying the burden with Jesus in prayer

 

 

Soon after Missionary Amy Carmichael arrived in India, she was distressed because orphan girls were given to Hindu temples to be used as prostitutes. Her heart ached for those girls, so she started an orphanage hoping to rescue them.

The Hindu priests resented her intrusion into their affairs, and soon British businessmen complained to the missionaries that they must stop Amy. When the unsympathetic missionaries told her to quit, Amy went to the priest herself. He was not about to hand the girls over to her.

She went home thinking she would have to forget helping these young prostitutes. Surely it was not to be her burden. But then it seemed she saw Jesus kneeling alone as He knelt long ago weeping under the olive trees.

Would Amy Carmichael share His burden and weep with Jesus?" The only thing that one who cared could do," she wrote, "was to go softly and kneel down beside Him, so that He would not be alone in His sorrow over the little children." God eventually used Amy to rescue hundreds of girl prostitutes from the temples.

A heart God can burden is His priceless gift to us. To receive this gift we put priority on personal communion with Jesus. He longs to share with us what is on His heart. Even now Jesus "always lives to intercede" (Heb. 7:25). Perhaps nothing pleases Christ more than for us to share His passion for others so deeply that we are moved to tears.

Let's regularly ask God to burden our hearts for revival and then indicate our sincere desire for a burden by praying earnestly daily. Jesus will see we are in earnest and reward us with a deepened prayer burden.

"Oh, my dear children! I feel as if I'm going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives." (Galatians 4:19 NLT).

(from "Fire Seekers," daily devotionals, Aletha Hinthorn)