John 11: 1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
2 It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill.
3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill.
4 But when Jesus heard it he said, This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.
5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.


Isaiah 30:18 Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

19 For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you.

Holy Father,

We are Your children. We are Your people. We are sick like Lazarus. We are in a state of spiritual malaise. We are helpless. We cannot raise ourselves from the dead. We are stuck in our tombs.

This sickness, the current state of the Church and the current state of our individual lives, even though our state greatly grieves You, we know this is all for Your glory because all things are for Your glory, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

We wait on You as You wait to be gracious to us once again for Your glory.
Blessed are we as we wait on You.

We come before You and bow and confess our sin before You. We have not loved You or one another as we ought. We do not deserve to come to You except through the blood of Jesus.

O Lord, You have been gracious to us by saving us and calling us to Yourself.

O Lord, You have been gracious to us. You loved us first before we loved You.

O Lord, You have been gracious to us. We had not received Your mercy but now we have received Your mercy.

O Lord, You have been gracious to us. We were not Your people but now we are Your people.

O Lord, You have been gracious to us. We were dead but now we are alive.

O Lord, You have been gracious to us. You have given Your only begotten Son for us.

We wait on You as You wait to be gracious to us once again for Your glory.
Blessed are we as we wait on You.

Even though we have sinned and grieved You (and we also are grieved by our sin), we appeal to You by Jesus' oath, covenant and blood, by which we were made Your people, we ask that You hear our prayers to come and revive us, to come and be gracious to us once more.

We wait on You as You wait to be gracious to us once again for Your glory.
Blessed are we as we wait on You.

Just as Jesus loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus, You love us for Jesus' sake. You loved us before we loved You. In Your sovereign love, mercy and grace You chose us and set Your love on us. We know You hear our prayers for Jesus' sake. We know You will never leave us or forsake us. We know that nothing can separate us from Your love for us in Christ Jesus. He is our surety. And You have given us Your Spirit as a deposit, a guarantee of Your promises to us.

And now You have been calling some of Your children to cry out to You for help. You have shown us there is no help apart from You. We know You have heard the sound of our cry for Jesus' sake. Yet there has been a delay –  just when Jesus waited to go to Bethany after He heard of His friend's sickness, You are waiting to come to us. You know our sickness. You have heard our cry. You knew our sickness before we cried to You. Lord, we know You are sovereign. We trust You are waiting to be gracious to us once more so You might be highly exalted, so You might be glorified and Your blessed Son, our Savior, glorified. All things are for Your glory.

We wait on You as You wait to be gracious to us once again for Your glory.
Blessed are we as we wait on You.

We know these things are all in Your time and in Your hands. You will be gracious to us again when You deem the fullness of time has come, in due time, in the time You alone ordain. Your timing is perfect. Your ways are perfect and Your ways are higher than our ways. We are trusting by faith and anticipating with fervent hope You will come at just the right time to revive us again and be gracious to us for Your Name's sake.

We wait on You as You wait to be gracious to us once again for Your glory.
Blessed are we as we wait on You.

Your time is perfect. That time will be that time when You will be most highly exalted and lifted up. We do not know that time. By faith and patience and great joy and anticipation we look ahead to the day that time will come. We know that in that time You will be glorified and Your Son will be glorified. O, Lord God, exalt Yourself, and show mercy to us.

We wait on You as You wait to be gracious to us once again for Your glory.
Blessed are we as we wait on You.

We know You have already heard our cries and are already moving and acting, even though we may not yet see much evidence. We trust by faith and look forward to that day You will be exalted in a way we cannot even imagine. We look to the day that we will not weep any more (except with tears of joy!). We look with faith to the day we will be revived, restored and renewed, the day Your Church will be a praise in the earth and a glory to You and no longer a reproach, an astonishment, a proverb and a byword. We look forward to the day that the nations will stream to Your house once again and our light will shine brightly to the ends of the earth.

We wait on You as You wait to be gracious to us once again for Your glory.
Blessed are we as we wait on You.

O, Lord, help us to persevere in prayer, by faith and with abundant hope and fullness of joy. May we continue to come to Your throne and appeal to Your mercy and grace again and again until You are gracious to us once again, that day when Your Spirit falls to revive us again, to speak to us so we might come forth from our tombs for Your glory and for the glory of Your Son.

We wait on You as You wait to be gracious to us once again for Your glory.
Blessed are we as we wait on You.

In a few days, Lord willing, I'm planning to begin a series of prayers based on the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, but first I would like to lead us in some preparatory prayers so God might begin to prepare and humble and break up the fallow ground of our hearts, so we might readily hear what His Spirit has to say to each one of us...

Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down...Isaiah 64:1

Thus says the Lord:
Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
2 All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.

Isaiah 66:1-2

From Elton Trueblood's "The Yoke of Christ and other sermons" (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), 16-17:

Even a small dose of vital Christianity is enough to shake people out of their easy complacency. When they begin to measure themselves by the standard of Christ, they know that their own personal goodness to be poor and shoddy by comparison. Jesus taught all who would learn to pray, not to be satisfied with their moral self-improvement, but to ask for forgiveness of sins. A Christian is one who, among other things, admits daily that he has done those things we he ought not to have done, and left undone those things which he ought to have done. Instead of thanking God that he is not as others, he cries out in sincerity, "God be merciful to me, a sinner."

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

We confess we are complacent.
We confess we overlook our sin.
We confess we justify our sin.
We confess we excuse our sin.
We confess we measure ourselves by the standard of men, rather than the standard of Christ.
We confess we are prideful and say, "I thank God I am not like that sinner."
We confess we neglect to see the plank in our own eye.
We confess we do not admit, "I am a sinner."

For Jesus Christ's sake, Holy God, be merciful to us, we are sinners. Forgive us our sins.

Forgive us for our complacency.
Forgive us for overlooking our sin.
Forgive us for justifying our sin.
Forgive us for excusing our sin.
Forgive us for measuring ourselves by the standard of men, rather than the standard of Christ.
Forgive us for being prideful and saying, "I thank God I am not like that sinner."
Forgive us for not seeing the plank in our own eye.
Forgive us for not admitting, "I am a sinner."

For Jesus Christ's sake, Holy God, be merciful to us, we are sinners. Forgive us our sins.

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,
who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
I dwell in the high and holy place,
and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly,
and to revive the heart of the contrite.
16 For I will not contend forever,
nor will I always be angry;
for the spirit would grow faint before me,
and the breath of life that I made.
17 Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry,
I struck him; I hid my face and was angry,
but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart.
18 I have seen his ways, but I will heal him;
I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners,
19 creating the fruit of the lips.
Peace, peace, to the far and to the near, says the Lord,
and I will heal him.

Isaiah 57:15-19

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Father, Son and Spirit,

You can rend the heavens, yet our hearts are so hard. Can You really rend our hearts? O, our hearts are so hard! But, yes, we know You can do all things. You can rend the hardest heart. Your desire is for us to have soft hearts. But we cannot soften our hearts. Your desire for us is to be holy as You are holy. Yet we cannot be holy apart from Your Holy Spirit. Your desire is for us to repent. But we cannot repent apart from Your kindness. Your kindness works to lead the chief of sinners to repentance. Each one of us is the chief of sinners. Though you dwell in the high and holy place, You come to dwell with those who have humble and contrite hearts. Yet we cannot make our hearts humble. We cannot work up sincere contrition.

Be merciful to us, O God! Rend the heavens and come down! Rend our hearts of complacency!

We need new hearts.
Rend our hearts.
Break our stony hearts.
Give us hearts of flesh.

Be merciful to us, O God! Rend the heavens and come down! Rend our hearts of complacency!

We need a new Spirit.
Give us Your Spirit
So we might walk in Your statutes.
And obey Your rules.

Be merciful to us, O God! Rend the heavens and come down! Rend our hearts of complacency!

Rend our hearts.
Humble our hearts.
Give us contrite hearts and spirits.
Come and dwell with us once more.

Be merciful to us, O God! Rend the heavens and come down! Rend our hearts of complacency!

If Your Presence does not go with us
Do not bring us up from here.
Rend the heavens and come down
Come and dwell with us once more.

Be merciful to us, O God! Rend the heavens and come down! Rend our hearts of complacency!

Come and heal us.
Open our ears to hear Your Word.
Circumcise our hearts to tremble at Your Word.
Rend the heavens and rend our hearts of complacency.