Day 4: Come before winter
Do your best to come before winter (2 Timothy 4:21 - ESV).
Our Father, Immortal God, You are from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 90:2). This world and everything in it is transient (1 John 2:17), with shifts, and shadows, and seasons, and cycles. But You do not change like shifting shadows (James 1:17)—You are constant through all the changing scenes of life.
Our human desire is to always have seasons of growth, and of vigor, of rest and of refreshing. But in Your perfect wisdom You have designed all our seasons to fulfill Your eternal purpose. And in Your hands are all our stages and cycles—summer and winter, and springtime and harvest.
Lord, You have never shielded us from the truth about the dangers and challenges of this life, and of Your kingdom mission. The Lord Jesus told us, In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
You have promised to be with us even when the assignment is difficult or deadly—just as You promised the apostle Paul You would be with him: The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about Me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome” (Acts 23:11).
But You know our human needs, and You knit us together in community for mutual help and support in the difficult days and in the long, dark seasons. You have so designed it, giving us the instruction, Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2).
So teach us to hear and respond to the cry of one in an hour of need who desperately begs, Do your best to come to me quickly (2 Timothy 4:9). Help us to be alert and attentive, so that we are not found sleeping and resting when for one in need, the hour has come. (Matthew 26:45).
All over the world, Your church is beset by danger, and peril, and sword in the natural and in the spiritual realm. Fill us with the love and concern, the strength and focus we need to keep vigil. Help us to respond with urgency, and do our best to come before winter (2 Timothy 4:21).
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