It is a blessed thing when a soul is driven to prayer with such a weight of Scripture upon its heart, for this is the true language of the Spirit who maketh intercession with groanings that cannot be uttered. You have piled up the promises, heaped up holy arguments, and laid hold upon the very throne of grace with a wrestler’s grip. This is as it should be, for our God loveth to be reminded of His own Word, and He putteth honour upon the desperate, dependent faith that will not let Him go except He bless.
Observe carefully the wonders you are pleading, that the steps of a man are ordered of the Lord, and that the kindness of God leadeth to repentance. Here is the soft but irresistible hammer that breaketh the flinty heart in pieces. Ofttimes when we expect the thunders of Sinai, the Spirit breathes a south wind of melting love. The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit, being patient for the early and latter rain. And so must you wait, for the Word sown is not lost though it lieth long under the clods. There is a vegetation of grace that travaileth in secret, sending down its rootlets in the dark before the tender green shoot peers above the surface. You have asked the Lord to continue His work; rest assured that where He hath begun a good work, He will perform it until the day of Christ. The initial softening, the vague dissatisfaction with husks, the very struggles against conviction, these are not signs of death but the first pangs of that repentance which is unto life.
Mark well what true repentance must be, for there is a sorrow of the world that worketh death. To cry out under the smart of the rod is natural to the brute beast, but to turn and smite the sin itself because it hath offended so good a God, this is the Spirit’s work. The repentance that giveth God glory is the real thing. It doth not make excuses for guilt, nor seek to cloak its filthiness with a fair name. It stands self-condemned and justifies the Lord in His holy law. This is what we are looking to see wrought in that heart heavy on your soul; not a mere dread of consequences, but a hatred of the thing itself because it is contrary to the lovingkindness of a pierced Saviour. And remember this, the eye of the Father’s love is quicker than the eye of the sinner’s repentance. While the prodigal was yet a great way off, his father saw him and ran. The Lord is not a reluctant receiver of returning rebels; He is the seeking Shepherd, the hastening Father, the God who willeth not that any should perish. Your plea from 2 Peter 3:9 is weighty with glory, He is long-suffering, not willing that the object of your prayers should perish, but should come to this godly repentance. Plant your foot there and let your faith stand firm.
Lay hold, too, on that vision of the Lord’s ordering of paths. You have rightly traced the Divine appointments in the meeting of Philip and the eunuch, in the sending of Ananias to Saul. Believe that the Lord, who setteth the solitary in families and fixeth the bounds of our habitation, can cross and re-cross the path of the one you pray for with a messenger of truth, with a word in season, with a kindness so unearthly that it shall bear the signature of Heaven. The still small voice of a patient, holy life in an unconverted spouse is often the loudest sermon a soul can hear. The kindness of the believing partner, steadfast and tender without compromise, is a restraint upon evil and a living exhibition of the great lovingkindness of the Bridegroom toward His bride. Trust the Lord to make use of any such instrument to hedge up the way with thorns, so that the wanderer may say, “I will go and return.”
Yet let me caution you against mistaking the order of grace. Repentance is not a preparation the sinner brings to lay before the Lord; it is a grace that the Lord Himself bestows. It is the first result of the Divine visitation, the earliest product of the Sun of Righteousness arising with healing in His wings. Look then not for the one you love to wash and make herself clean and then approach; rather, look to the exalted Prince and Saviour to give repentance and remission of sins. The stones of the heart are not broken by our own feeble hammers but by the rod of His strength sent out of Zion. So turn your eyes from the degree of sorrow you see, or the length of time the hardening seems to continue, and fix them upon the throne. He is exalted on high; He has all power in heaven and in earth; He has the key of the heart; He opens and no man shuts. Plead that He would exercise this prerogative of His crown, not for merit’s sake in the sinner, for there is none, but for His great name’s sake, that He might see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.
Consider Manasseh, that old Testament prodigal, in the dungeon of Babylon. Who would have thought that such a wretch, who had filled Jerusalem with blood and desecrated the temple with idols, should be brought low and find mercy? Yet when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and the Lord heard his supplication. The iron entered into his soul before the grace entered, but the grace entered. No place is too vile, no heart too hard, no circumstance too tangled for the arm of the Lord. The afflictions you see, and the inward unrest we cannot see, may be the very cords with which the Lord is drawing the wanderer, not to the swine-trough in utter despair, but toward the Father’s house. Prayer is the key that unlocks these dungeons; it is the vehicle that bringeth the deliverer swiftly.
Be not dismayed, therefore, if the work tarries. The Lord’s delays are not denials. The vision is for an appointed time. While you watch and pray, see to it that your own heart remains in that sweet and humbling spirit of repentance which you are seeking for another. Our Lord’s command is that repentance and remission be preached in His name, not merely once at conversion, but as a lifelong, daily posture of the renewed soul. Sweet sister Repentance travels with us until we cross the threshold of glory; she teaches us to abhor ourselves in dust and ashes and, in that very act, to magnify the unsearchable riches of Christ’s lovingkindness. This is a humbling work, but a blessed one. When thy soul bows low before the throne, remembering thy own natural filthiness and the mire out of which sovereign grace picked thee, thou art in the right frame to pray for another’s deliverance. Only a sinner saved by grace can intercede with the pathos and power of a priest of God.
So let thy prayer return to the battle with renewed vigour. Thank Him for all He is doing in the unseen depths. Thank Him for the restraining hand that holds back from worse evil. Thank Him for every text that pricks the conscience, for every sleepless night, for every broken cistern, for every disappointment under the sun. All these may be the Lord God hedging up the way, that the soul may stumble upon the one true Way, even Jesus. And think not that the one you pray for lies beyond the reach of a wonder-working God. He can cause the most stubborn to yield with a look of love, with a whispered word from the Comforter, with a sudden remembrance of a mother’s teaching or a grandfather’s faith. The Father is always working, and Christ is working with Him. Put thy file of promises into His hand, remind Him of them no more, He cannot forget them, but with the confidence of a child, say, “Father, do as Thou hast said. Show Thy marvelous lovingkindness, and get Thyself glory in the salvation of this immortal soul.” The fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous man, even of one made righteous by faith, still availeth much and moveth the hand that moves the world.
Father, we thank You that Your Word does not return void, Isa 55:10, and that seeds have been planted, Mark 4:14, Mark 4:26, Mark 4:27, Mark 4:28, Mark 4:29. From You and through You and back to You be all glory, Rom 11:36. Please continue working on this "still current wife's heart" by bringing fresh truth, restraining evil and carrying any work You've begun on to completion until the day of Christ, Phil 1:6. Continue to bring others into her path to water seeds, speak truth and show the kindness of God, Rom 2:4, and across the paths of all who have heard the word from all time, especially the last several months, especially for our patriarchal and matriarchal figures, progeny and posterity. Since the steps of the righteous are ordered by You, Ps 37:23, as evidenced by the evangelist and the foreign official reading Isaiah 53 in Acts 8:26-31, the believer in Acts 9:10-11 who was told to go find the future Apostle to the Gentiles, and the Apostles directed to go help a certain man, Acts 16:6-10. You, being perfect AND patient, not willing any perish but rather that all come to repentance, 2 Pet 3:9, and desire all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, even using prayer to that ends, 1 Tim 2:1-4.
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. 
