I have heard your prayer, and I cannot help but feel my own heart warm within me. Here you are, not asking for ease or for a little quiet blessing in a corner, but pleading for the very fire of heaven to fall upon a backyard and a block that the world might pass by without a glance. This is the mark of the Spirit upon a soul, when a man looks upon the bruised, the addicted, the homeless, and sees not a problem to be avoided but a harvest to be gathered. You are catching the very heart of Christ, who sat with publicans and sinners and never once drew His robe aside from their uncleanness.
Do not let the smallness of the beginning trouble you. You have laid a spark upon the altar, and you wonder whether it can amount to anything. But tell me, what will draw a handful will draw a hundred, and what is useful to a few may be made just as useful to a multitude. When we deal with spiritual forces, we have not to calculate by pounds and ounces. Give me fire, I will not bargain for a furnace. A single candle, if God be in it, can set a whole forest to blazing. You have kindled prayer on your property, and the Holy Spirit is not hindered by the size of the room or the respectability of those who stumble through the door. He knows how to save all kinds of men, and He can use the very things we count weak to shame the strong.
I know well enough what darts the enemy will aim at you in this work. When you look at the faces that come, and see the cloven hoof of an old habit still showing, or when answers do not come as swiftly as your soul cries for them, a dark thought will shoot through your mind: “God has forgotten this place. These are too far gone. What made you think He would use you?” Have you not already felt that whisper? It is Satan’s last and deadliest arrow, and he saves it for those who dare to storm his gates with prayer. But the Lord has not forsaken you, nor those you cry out for. He brought Israel forth from Egypt, and there was not one feeble person among their tribes. He sent them out with silver and gold. So will He bring out the captives on your block, not only unbound, but enriched with His grace, and made strong where they were utterly broken.
You have dug a well there, my friend, even the well of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Keep drawing the living water for yourself, and you will never run dry. Let the Book of God be your unfailing comfort when your own soul is weary. How often, when we are ready to faint, we turn to a promise and find it waits there like a love letter in a black-edged envelope, sweet precisely because our need is so great. As you gather your little church of misfits, simply set the Bread of life before them. You need not be eloquent. You need only be faithful. When Peter preached at Pentecost, one sermon was the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance to three thousand souls. There is no reason why the Lord should not cause the word spoken in your backyard to do the same, in His time and His way. Our God can as readily bless a multitude as one single man. He does not need our machinery; He wants our dependence.
And I have this promise for you, straight from the mouth of the Spirit: the ploughman shall overtake the reaper. The day is coming when the harvest on your street will be so abundant that one season of grace will crowd upon another. Before you have finished rejoicing over one soul snatched from the pit, you will hear of another and another, until your heart is too full for words. You pray for Pentecostal fire, then expect it to burn. You have put the match to the altar; now stand back and watch what the Lord will do. Meanwhile, sweeten these waiting hours by walking in your own agreement with God. Bow your will to His, and let your soul move as sensitively to His wish as the mercury moves with the air. In that close, habitual communion, you will find your strength perfected even while your prayers are yet unanswered.
The family that lies so heavy on your heart, do not cease to plead. The judgments they have held against one another, you have broken in Jesus’ name from your side; now trust the Father to break them inwardly. He can soften the hardest heart with one gentle look of His love. Remember that He who rescued you from the very brim of the pit can do the same for every soul that now seems so far from Him. There is not a man or woman on your block standing beyond the reach of His arm. Some of them are only a step from eternity, but that arm is not shortened that it cannot save. Our Lord delights in stooping low. The deeper the misery, the more room for His mercy.
So lift up your head, weary soldier. You are not alone in this, ten thousand prayers from hidden ones are rising with yours, and the great Intercessor never ceases to plead. The work is His, from first to last. He will supply every need according to His riches in glory. He will send the helpers, clear the hindrances, and bring in the outcasts from the highway and the hedge.
Lord Jesus, we are bold to stand with this dear praying servant now. Let a river of living water flow down that block. Let the fire of the Holy Ghost burn over every house, consuming what is evil and kindling what is holy. Break the chains of addiction. Heal the wounds no human eye can see. Bring in the homeless to find a home in Your heart, and the addicted to drink of the water that quenches every thirst. Save the neighbors, one by one, and not one member of that family be left to perish. Let revival break out like the dawn, noiselessly at first, then flooding all things with glory. We ask it in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and only hope. Amen.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
