"Son of David," two blind men cried out to Jesus in Matthew 9, "have mercy on us!" They followed Jesus into a house. "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" He asked them. "Yes, Lord," they replied. "According to your faith," Jesus answered, "let it be to you." And their eyes were opened.
I need that kind of faith right now. This is the first time in our 30 years of ministry that we have had to consider cutting back. Some of our teams are in jeopardy. I've been praying and fasting. And the Lord has spoken to me powerfully: "Son, what are your eyes on?" He asked me. "Are you thinking about how to keep the doors of Dayspring open? Are you looking at how to slash the budget because of hard times? Are you biding time until things get better?"
What were my eyes on? What is my passion? I asked myself. I thought of how profoundly Jesus was moved by the pain of others, the Lord of Creation who took action and left His glory with an overwhelming desire to alleviate the suffering of a lost humanity.
"Lord," I prayed, "if keeping the doors open or slashing the budget or biding time till things get better isn't the challenge — then what is?"
Like a flood the answer came. It's those 8,400 village film showings that we may lose this year. It's the 3.36 million villagers who might not hear the gospel this year. It's those 70 teams and 420 team members we've trained and sent out, whose ministry is now at risk.
How could I choose who gets to hear the gospel and who doesn't?
Then the Lord spoke to me again: "Son, what are you going to do about it?"
I can't continue to do what I've been doing, I realized, and expect different results.
So I covenanted to do three things:
- Pray every morning for our teams not to be lost.
- Give more to Dayspring personally this year than I ever have before.
- Ask everyone I know to join me.
So here I am... asking you to follow Jesus into the house with me.
"According to your faith let it be to you." Amen!
