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What to Do When You're the Only Person Praying for Your Family · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Bart Leger: One afternoon, a teenage boy named Hudson Taylor
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  was bored and looking for something to pass the time. He
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  was not a believer. He wandered into his father's library and
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  pulled a gospel tract off the shelf. He planned to read the
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  interesting part and skipped the religious ending. He didn't know
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  his mother was on her knees. She was away from home that week,
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  staying with friends in another town. After lunch, a strong
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  sense came over her that she needed to pray for her right
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  then. She shut herself in an upstairs room and started asking
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  God to save him, and she didn't stop. She stayed there hour
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  after hour until something in her settled and she felt sure
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  that God had heard. Back home, Hudson kept reading that little
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  tract. We'll come back to what happened in that library, but
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  first, welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm
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  Bart Leger. My mom is the only believer in her family. For
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  years, she has been the one praying for the rest of them,
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  praying for their salvation. And last week, something happened
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  she'd prayed for for a long time. Her sister, my mom's sister, is
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  terminally ill. In her final days, she prayed to trust Christ.
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  And last night, at the time of this recording, my mom's sister
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  passed away. She died, we believe, having come to Jesus
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  because one faithful woman would not stop praying for her family.
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  I'm telling you this with the grief that's still fresh, and
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  with the gratitude I can hardly put into words. Maybe you're in
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  that same spot. You may be the only person in your whole
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  extended family who prays for the rest of them. spouse who
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  doesn't believe. The grown kids who have walked away from the
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  faith they were raised in. The parents and siblings who have no
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  interest in God at all. And somehow, the job of bringing
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  that entire family before the Lord has fallen to you. Nobody
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  assigned it to you. You just love them, and you seem to be
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  the only one on your knees. And it can feel lonely. And some
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  days, it can feel pointless, like your prayers go up and
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  nothing comes back down. There's a moment in Acts that speaks
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  right to the lonely believer in a family. A jailer in Philippi
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  asked the apostle Paul how to be saved. And listen to what Paul
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  told him in Acts 16.31. So they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus,
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  and you will be saved, you and your household. You will be
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  saved, you and your household. Paul spoke that to one
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  frightened man in the middle of the night. And by the morning,
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  the man's whole household had believed and been baptized. One
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  person's faith became the doorway for an entire family.
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  That's a pattern you'll find all over Scripture and all through
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  history. God loves faith of one member of it. The one who prays.
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  The one who keeps believing when nobody else in the family does.
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  He's not put off by being outnumbered in your family tree.
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  Some of his best work starts with a single believer who just
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  won't quit. So hear this, if you're the only one praying.
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  Your prayers are not vanishing. You can't see what God's doing
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  behind the closed doors of the people you love. But He's doing
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  something. And He's patient with them in ways that would exhaust
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  you. And He's at work in rooms you'll never walk into. Hudson
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  Taylor sat alone in that library, sure that nobody was thinking of
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  his soul, while two women prayed him into the kingdom. The people
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  you're praying for may feel just as alone and just as surrounded
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  without knowing it. Keep going. You may be the only one praying,
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  but you're not praying alone. God is already there. That's the
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  twist in Hudson Taylor's story. Somewhere in that tract, Hudson
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  read a phrase about the finished work of Christ, and it spoke to
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  him. Right there, in his father's library, that afternoon,
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  he gave his life to God. He couldn't wait to tell his mother.
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  When she came home a couple of weeks later, he met her at the
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  door with his news, ready to surprise her. But she wasn't
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  surprised. She told him she already knew. She had been
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  rejoicing for two weeks. Ever since the afternoon, she shut
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  herself in a room miles away and prayed until she was sure. And
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  there was more. His sister, without saying a word to him,
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  had been praying for his salvation every day for the past
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  month. Hudson had felt completely alone in that library,
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  but he wasn't. The whole time, two women who loved him had been
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  holding him before God, and God was already at work. He wasn't
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  alone. Hudson felt completely by himself, and he was completely
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  surrounded. That's the encouragement for you today. You
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  feel alone in your praying, and heaven is fuller of your
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  requests than you know. The family member you're aching over
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  is not beyond God's reach, and your prayers aren't wasted.
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  Every one of them is doing something you may not be able to
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  see yet. Here's today's challenge. If you're the only
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  person praying for your family, don't stop. Today, name them out
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  loud to God, one by one. Maybe it's the spouse or the child,
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  whoever's far from him. Ask him to draw them and convict them of
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  their need for salvation. Then leave the timing with him, and
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  trust that he's working while you wait.
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  Father, some of us are the only ones in our families living to
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  the rest of them to you. It can get lonely, and it can feel like
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  nothing's happening. Thank you for the promise that you save
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  households through the faith of one, that you are working in the
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  people we love even now. Give us the endurance to keep praying
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  and not give up. If you need prayer today, I'd love to hear
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  from you. You can leave me a voicemail at
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  dailydevotionsforbusylives.com slash voicemail. I listen to
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  every single one, and it would be an honor to bring your name
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  before the Lord. Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions
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  for Busy Lives. Remember, God has a pattern of reaching a
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  whole family through the faith of one person. So if you're the
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  only one praying, keep going, because your prayers are not
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  disappearing, and God is already at work. Come back next time for
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  more encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth.
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  Until then, God bless, and have a great day.