3 Ways to Pray for the Nations
Impacting lives for eternity through prayer.
The practices of praise and prayer are central to everything we do. They are the heartbeat of our conversations with a living and active God; they nourish our relationship with Him and bring clarity and hope to our lives.
We see this all throughout Scripture. The Old Testament is filled with beautiful accounts of God’s people both offering Him praise and asking Him to move. Jesus modeled for His disciples what prayer should look like, and He regularly spent intentional time with the Father in prayer. He also spent time intentionally praising the Father for all He had done.
Across Wycliffe’s history, if we were to trace the ways He’s moved with the prayers that have been prayed over the decades, I’m sure we would all be encouraged. Sometimes God has said yes to our requests; other times He’s said no. Still other times He’s said, “I have something in store that hasn’t even crossed your minds. Watch Me move!”
We believe we’re in a season where God is pouring out His Spirit in ways that we’ve never experienced before. At the same time, things that have been hard are getting harder. The remaining language communities that don’t have God’s Word today are unreached for a reason.
Many of them are isolated geographically or in environments that are simply difficult. Others are located in areas where people practice religions and beliefs that are strongly opposed to the gospel message. But God is at work, even in these hard-to-reach communities!
Your prayers continue to be a vital part of this work. Together, with hearts overflowing with praise and prayer, we can intercede before God’s throne and ask Him to move in ways that we can’t even begin to imagine, for His glory and the good of His global Church!
3 Easy Ways to Pray for the Nations
1. Pray for People by Name
What and who are you praying for? Your family is likely at the top of that list, followed by friends and others in your community. And if you pray for people specifically by name, your list likely goes on and on — for good reason! Prayer is an essential conversation with God; through it, we have the opportunity to praise His name, present our requests, receive His guidance and deepen our relationship with Him.
We’d love for you to join us in also praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. Through prayer, we’re given the opportunity to link arms with them, asking God to move, to heal, to provide, to sustain, to transform and more.
If you know someone that you specifically want to pray for, pray for them by name! And if you don’t know, remember Romans 8:26b-27: “We don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will” (NLT).
We believe that prayer is powerful and transforms lives. May we all experience moments where we can clearly see His hand at work both in our lives and in the lives of His people everywhere!
Your Next Step: Join the Wycliffe Prayer Community
Link arms with others in the global Church to pray for active Bible translation projects around the world. In addition to the requests from translators and other partners in the field, you’ll find written stories, photos and videos to help you feel connected to the people you’re praying for!
Join the Wycliffe Prayer Community today to begin receiving daily opportunities to pray for others who are at various points in the Bible translation journey as they pursue a day when Scripture is available in their language.
Join the Wycliffe Prayer Community today!
Praise & Prayer
Lord Jesus,
We come before You with hearts full of gratitude and awe. Thank You for the boundless love You showed through the gift of Your Son, Jesus — love so extravagant that it reached across eternity to rescue and redeem us.
We praise You for seeing each one of us, for knowing us fully and for pursuing us with such intentional love. We are humbled that You, the Creator of all, would draw us close, calling us by name and saying we’re Yours.
May our lives be a reflection of this love, sharing it with those around us so that others, too, may encounter the deep, unchanging love of Jesus. Help us to remember to pray for the day when all people — every man, woman and child — is able to understand Your transforming love for themselves. Amen.
2. Pray for Communities Around the World
The Apostle Paul, speaking to people in Athens, said: “From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries. His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:26-28a, NLT).
God created communities and nations to draw us to Him, and He has you in your community for a purpose. But as part of His global Church, we also get the incredible privilege of playing a role in advancing His purposes for other communities around the world!
Prayer is foundational to seeing all people from every community encounter Jesus through Scripture. Through prayer, you also participate with local churches around the world by thanking God for what He’s doing as His Word is translated into the languages and formats best understood by the people they love and serve.
Your Next Step: Global Prayer List
The Global Prayer List is a comprehensive set of updated prayer needs — directly from the field — representing different regions and language communities around the world. It’s updated each month so that you’ll have the opportunity to bring the most timely requests before the Lord on behalf of the communities engaged with active Bible translation projects. Use the list on your own, with your family or in a small group!
Download the Global Prayer List today!
Praise & Prayer
Father God,
You’ve called your Church to make disciples of all nations, and we gladly accept this invitation. We know You long for people from every language to understand the Bible and be transformed.
Please equip your Church to make all Scripture available to all people. We recognize that we are completely dependent on You to see this accomplished, and we pray with expectation and anticipation for the joy set before us.
May Your name be lifted high as we — the body of Christ all over the world — humbly seek Your face, asking You to do more than we can even begin to imagine so that all people can encounter You through Scripture. This is all for You, Lord — for Your glory and the good of Your people everywhere. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
3. Praise God for His Faithfulness
Jesus modeled for His disciples what prayer should look like, and He regularly spent intentional time with the Father in prayer. That said, He also dedicated time to intentionally praise the Father for all He had done.
Psalm 103:1-2 says, “Let all that I am praise the LORD; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name. Let all that I am praise the LORD; may I never forget the good things he does for me” (NLT).
As disciples of Jesus, it’s essential that we follow His lead in offering praise for the blessings we experience! It’s the act of intentionally stopping to acknowledge: “God, we see how You showed up in that situation or circumstance. Thank you!” At Wycliffe, we call this practice “God Sightings,” and we invite you to make this practice an intentional, consistent part of your life.
Your Next Step: God Sightings Among the Nations
We encourage you to sign up for weekly “God Sightings” text messages to keep you informed, inspired and encouraged by the latest news. Each week, you’ll receive an update on what God is doing around the world — directly to your phone — with specific things to not only pray for but also for which to give thanks!
Join us in praying for God’s name to be made known among the nations through the work of Bible translation and in praising Him for His faithfulness yesterday, today and forever.
Text SIGHTINGS to 407-358-0916.
Praise & Prayer
Father God,
As we look at what’s taking place in the Bible translation movement, we see Your fingerprints everywhere:
- Your Spirit being poured out upon the earth.
- Your heart on display as Your name is made known among the nations in the languages and formats that resonate with people’s hearts.
- Your Church responding to Your call, united and collaborating so that every man, woman and child can understand personally the transforming power of the gospel.
The Bible translation movement is filled with incredible only-God moments. We joyfully proclaim that we serve an awesome God! May we not just be witnesses to what You are doing but proclaimers of the ways we see You at work. We love You, Lord. Amen.
Simple Ways to Pray for Bible Translation
Want to pray more generally for Bible translation? Here are a few simple ways you can join us in prayer:
- Pray for the local church to not only desire Scripture in a language and format they can clearly understand but also to desire significant involvement in the work.
- Pray for collaboration and unity as Bible translation agencies, church denominations, local leaders and others work together to create strategies and plans that reach communities with Scripture.
- Pray for open doors at both the local and national level. Pray that God would go before His Church to open doors for Bible translation in the last remaining languages as He deems best.
- Pray for our partners — in prayer, funding, strategy, translation, Scripture engagement and more — to come together with a single focus: to see God’s name made known among the nations!
- Pray for the harvest and for the laborers. We know that Revelation 7:9-10 promises a day when every “nation and tribe and people and language” will stand before the throne worshipping. That vision is becoming reality before our eyes today! But the work isn’t done yet; there’s still much to do. May we all be faithful to the roles God has called us to, working toward a day when people from every language will understand the Bible and be transformed.
There’s no limit to the ways we can engage in this ongoing conversation with God! Thank you for partnering with us in praying for a day when every man, woman and child are able to encounter Jesus through Scripture in a language and format they can clearly understand. What a glorious day it will be when all people — from every nation and tribe — worships before the Lamb together.
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