When you are focused on someone you really love, a project you really believe in, a passion that easily consumes you, you tend to connect everything to that one object of your vision. Sometimes other people may have trouble matching your enthusiasm for your driving passion when you try to share it. They may just smile and nod, hoping the conversation will move on to matters you have in common. As you grow in your faith, you will develop a greater and greater focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. That life-focus will make you want to share Him, and learning to negotiate the conflict between social awkwardness and compassion for the lost is part of growing up.

It can be a challenge at times to remember that not every believer with whom you seek fellowship has developed an evident passion for Christ yet. At the same time none of us has fully “arrived.” Until we are face to face with Him we will be growing “in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Regardless of where we are in our individual walk with Christ, in the Bible we find that an ever-growing hunger for the things of God is the norm for believers. In 2 Thes 3:1-2, Paul demonstrates his life-consuming passion: making disciples through teaching God’s word. This is the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ (Mt 28:19-20), and Paul’s life was completely committed to the mission.

If I said, “What can I pray for on your behalf?” what would you say? If you had only one summary request to make, what would it be? Paul’s answer should set the trajectory for our lives:

¹Finally, brethren, pray for us

that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified, just as   it did also with you;

²and that we will be rescued from perverse and evil men; for not all have the* faith.

According to Paul’s scale of values and priorities, a prayer on his behalf is a prayer for his life’s mission—the spread of God’s word. His prayer request is for the advance of the Word: “that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified…” yet he says “pray for us.” It is an inescapable conclusion from the apostle’s words that he equated a prayer for his interests as a prayer for God’s mission. He wanted his life to count, and he hung all his ambitions on a successful expansion of God’s priorities.

Sometimes we find significance in what is not said. Paul does not ask for:

• Prayer for him to have fun, ease, rest, etc.
• Prayer for him to have health
• Prayer for God to “expand his boundaries” = wealth
• Prayer for him to find a wife
• Prayer for him to have peace, joy, hope, satisfaction, _________.

All these desires are legitimate and the common experience of universal human longing. Yet Paul goes beyond the merely temporal and mundane to embrace eternal significance. The second request, for protection of his person from violence or oppression, is only offered in support of the first request. If Paul will be used by God to spread the word he will need protection. Notice that even the request Paul makes on his own behalf is really in logistical support of the mission. Do your requests for your real and present needs serve the higher goal of God’s mission in the world? If we get first things first our prayers will become more effective.

As a former tanker, I think of the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank as an illustration of protection in support of the mission. You don’t build seventy tons of armor around an anti-armor gun for just the sheer coolness of it. You don’t match a massive, fuel-guzzling turbine engine to a ridiculously heavy-duty drive-train to show off at monster truck rallies. That tank with its anti-tank gun has a mission: primarily killing other tanks. The armor protects the tank crew from enemy fire so they can accomplish their mission. The engine makes the seventy-ton monster nimble enough to maneuver quickly behind protective terrain, the most important protection in a fire fight. These features, which account for a massive investment of defense dollars in equipment and training of a tank crew are not an end in themselves. These systems enable the crew to accomplish the mission. So it is with Paul’s request, “that we will be rescued from perverse and evil men….”

Anything that serves Paul’s wants or needs as an end in itself is beyond the scope of his highest priority or apparently of his prayer life. The request Paul makes of the Thessalonians begins with his purpose for living. In imitation of Paul we can find purpose in our mission: that the word will spread rapidly and be glorified!

“Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart”—PS 37:4