“Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us.Yes, establish the work of our hands.”
– Psalm 90:17
Psalm 90:17 is one of my favorite verses in all the Psalms. Just pleading for God’s favor to bless the work of our hands in ways far beyond what we can imagine. Just asking God to cause the work of our hands to bear fruit for His glory, for others good.
Lord, establish Your church to thrive in an impoverished village even during a pandemic. We pray for those laboring and toiling for the advancement of the gospel in such a difficult context.
So the reason why I choose this verse, just as a reminder, we are praying each day just for specific prayer requests that people are sending in during this pandemic. So feel free to go to radical.net/prayer requests. Just put your name, prayer request in and we’re just pulling from all of these. I wish we could get to all of them, maybe at some point we will, but not if you keep sending things in, which is great though, keep sending things in. But I want to pray today, Psalm 90:17, to lead us to pray over JS.
The Gospel Can Give Us Hope In Our Work
So the person put in JS. JS is serving in Southeast Asia, in a place where there are few followers of Jesus, where they are working to plant churches. And JS writes, “We are seeing the first church ever formed in an impoverished village, where most of these new believers who are coming to Christ, they work in the city dump. They sort and recycle trash all day in order to eke out enough money for food. This is a scary profession,” JS writes, “in the midst of a pandemic, but these new believers are displaying hope and joy, while sharing the gospel with their coworkers. So will you pray that these villagers will be protected from sickness, and that God will bless their work, and they’re sharing the gospel to lead other people to Christ in this otherwise unreached area?”
Be Thankful For The Privilege Of Having God With Us
Like, what a picture. What a picture of God’s grace, the light of the gospel shining in the middle of spiritual darkness, in the midst of physical need. And so I just want to pray. Lead us to pray, Psalm 90:17 over that village in Southeast Asia. So just realize as we pray together right now, we have the privilege of participating with God in what he’s doing in that village in Southeast Asia, like this should just blow our minds. Whenever we are praying for people in general but for people in different parts of the world, different countries, for the spread of the gospel in unreached areas, to know that we are participating with God in what He is doing there?
Psalm 90:17 Pray For Southeast Asia During The Pandemic
So God, we pray Psalm 90:17, in the middle of this pandemic and its effects in this part of Southeast Asia. So God, we pray that you would establish the work of JS’ hands and these men and women who’ve come to Christ, who are working day in and day out in that city dump, God, we pray that you would strengthen their hands, you’d protect their hands. God we pray that you protect them and other villages from sickness that certainly spreads through a trash dump. God, have mercy upon them. And God, we pray that you would give them grace, power, boldness to share the gospel in the middle of that dump, so that more people might come to know Christ, so that church might indeed be established.
Establish the work of their hands, oh God, establish your church there, we pray, to thrive in the middle of that trash dump, to thrive in the middle of that village in Southeast Asia, to thrive in the middle of this pandemic. God, we pray, oh for that village and places like it, that churches would be planted in the middle of this pandemic. That gospel hope would spread. That gospel communities would form with faith around Christ and the hope and the peace that are found in Him.
Psalm 90:17 Wants The Gospel To Spread To The Suffering
God, we pray for that, specifically in this village. God, we pray for JS, for all those who are working around JS in that area. In fact God, we pray that you would establish the work of their hands, that you would cause your favor to be upon them, so that the gospel might spread all throughout those men and women and their children who work in that trash dump in Southeast Asia. We pray this and we praise you for the privilege of being a part of what you’re doing there, and through our prayers establish the work of their hands, in the middle of this pandemic, we pray, in Jesus name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
