What Color is Your Dot?

Article 12 of 37 from the Ponder This - 2003 series

March 2003 - WHAT COLOR IS YOUR DOT? by Ray Pritchard Our church theme this year is “Lord, teach us to pray.” During the month of April we want to take a practical step in that direction by encouraging everyone to pray daily for the lost. Here's how we plan to do it. In the pew racks this morning there is a card with some small dots on it. These dots are various colors (blue, red, green) that are actually stickers you can place on your watch or your daily calendar or on your mirror or in any other prominent place. The dots are meant to remind you to do something very simple every day during April. We want you to think of one person who needs to know Jesus and then spend one minute praying for that person at 1:00 p.m. every day. Here's the slogan: Pray for One at One. Simple and easy to remember. Pray for one person for one minute at 1:00 p.m. every day during April. And to help you with that one minute, we've included a bookmark in the bulletin that lists some things to pray for each day: “Pray that God will draw them to Himself” (April 1), “Pray that they will seek to know God” (April 5), “Pray that Satan will not steal the truth from their hearts” (April 15), “Pray that we will have soft and tender hearts toward the lost” (April 22), “Pray that they will trust Christ and Him alone for salvation” (April 29). The key to making this work is for you to take the dot and put it somewhere prominent where you can't miss it every day. The ideal place is right on your watch next to the “1” so you'll be sure to remember to “pray for one at one” every day this month. Now this may not seem to be doing very much to reach the lost, but the combined power of our prayers is enormous. If 1,000 adults take this challenge, that's 1,000 minutes per day times 30 days, which equals 30,000 minutes of focused prayer for the lost. That equals 500 hours of prayers or almost 21 days of round-the-clock prayer. There is something deeper at work in all of this. As we have studied the prayers of Paul, I have been struck (and convicted) with how seriously Paul prayed. He talked about wrestling in prayer, agonizing in prayer, striving in prayer. Several times I've mentioned the importance of “boiling” prayers that get God's attention. A skeptic may wonder how serious we are about the lost if all we do is pray for them one minute each day. But that equals 30 minutes of prayer for a lost person during April. What we pray about, we care about. We have to start somewhere, so let's start with a simple question that could have eternal implications: What color is your dot?