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The Wake-Up Call
All the Things: "May I Pray for You?"
00:21:10
When we take small risks of faith, even practicing with people who know us and love us, we begin to see that God does not use the “anointed,” but rather the obedient. - - - - - - - We're preparing for another year of sowing! Help keep the Wake-Up Call free for everyone by sponsoring a day. https://seedbed.com/springsowing - - - - - - - Are you ready to unlock the power of a single, life-changing question? In this inspiring episode of Seedbed Inc’s “Wake Up Call,” host Dan Wilt dives into the heart of Everyday Ministry in the Power of the Spirit, revealing how the simple act of asking, “May I pray for you?” can open doors to divine encounters and transformative moments. Whether you feel on the outside looking in when it comes to spiritual gifts or you’re ready to see God move through you in powerful ways, this episode will equip and encourage you. Dan Wilt shares his own journey from anxious introvert to Spirit-led risk taker, offering practical wisdom and heartfelt stories—from spo...
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Good morning Sower Nation. Today is Wednesday, May 27th, in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm Dan Wilt and this is your wake up call. We have just begun our series. We're in day three, but if you're coming in at any point, that's fine. Our new series, all the Everyday Ministry in the Power of the Spirit. Today I'm so exc. Because the question that sits at the center of today's reflection is I believe at the very center of helping many of us move from feeling on the outside, looking in when it comes to spiritual gifts, when it comes to seeing God move in his love and power through us, in the lives of others, and seeing him move in our own hearts and in our own lives and in our hearts, homes, churches and cities, as we say our communities. So we're going to begin with our call to wake up from Ephesians 5:14 as we do every day. And then I'll lead us in our prayer of consecration. Wake up sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Let's begin our meeting with Jesus today, praying these words. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you. And we're praying in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Well, today's entry is entitled all the Things May I Pray for your and our text is again Acts 1:1:2. We're not going to use that passage all the time up front for the entire series, but I wanted to begin these early days getting it set in our hearts that we're being invited to something. So hear the word of the Lord. In my former book Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles and he had chosen the word of the Lord. Consider this. Today's story contains a little question that opened a whole new world for me in participating with Jesus in his all the Things ministry. I remember being in my dorm room at Penn State University praying. My faith was fresh and red hot. My heart was overwhelmed with the love of God, yet my introversion was at its peak. Was evangelism really just for extroverts? Or was there another way for me to step into the kind of person to person spirit powered ministry? I saw Jesus, the apostles and his followers throughout the ages engage in I was afraid to even try to explain the Gospel. Years later, a friend introduced me to a simple question, may I pray for you? Five little words. I began to practice using it with my friends, with classmates, with family members, then with waiters and waitresses, people I met throughout the day. To my surprise, I began to sense the Holy Spirit moving in and through those simple prayers. Often I would see pictures while I prayed. Sometimes a person would be visibly touched. Once someone in those early days was physically healed right there on the spot. So have you ever had one of those moments when you realized that a pebble was starting an avalanche in your life? My friend's introduction of the question, may I pray for you? Was that pebble for me. The simplicity of the question seemed to open doors with people from all walks of life, showing that I was truly concerned about their well being and creating an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to touch the person's heart. When I look at all that Jesus did and taught, I can often feel like I lack the boldness to just speak with authority to someone's body and see it healed, or to sense God's leading in my spirit, speak to someone and then deliver a message without fear. But when I learned to ask the kingdom question, may I pray for you? It became a pathway, a tool for me to partner with what the Holy Spirit was already about in the person's life. And after a person said yes, which was often, I would ask if I could lay my hand on their shoulder. And if they said yes, I would pause before offering all the heartfelt prayers that came to mind to listen to the Holy Spirit. We began praying with their need and the Spirit's guidance in focus rather than with my empathy or spiritual well wishes. So in a moment, I'm going to share with you what I mean when I say, how do we pray for them? A moment of putting our hand on their shoulder or just praying for them? I'm going to explain a little bit more about that in a moment. Moment. It was in those moments of pause, the listening part. I usually said something like, let's take a moment to wait on the Lord before I pray. Then in that moment I began to get impressions about what to pray for and how. I began to have scriptures emerge in my mind. I began to see pictures, images in my imagination. I began to sense God's direction for my prayers, even at times leading me to pray for something completely different from what the person originally wanted me to pray for. It was then I began to experience what John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard movement called Power Ministry. But let's put a pin in that for now. For today, let's dub the phrase may I pray for you? Our Kingdom question and over the weeks ahead, beginning today, I would encourage you to practice using it as you discern God's leading with a person. Now, in this moment, I'm going to pause in the reading. There's still more to the Consider this part of the entry, but I want to pause to note a footnote that you'll see in the actual book and journal. It's about how we pray for people when we ask may I pray for you or may I pray for you now? Here are a few prayer tips just to get you started. Always approach people with gentleness and humility and in a way that acknowledges their dignity. Express kindness in your demeanor and represent Christ to them. This is so important. And again, I'm giving this invitation and this question right at the beginning of our series because we're going to begin to act on it in the ways that we have grace to do it personally. But always express kindness in your demeanor. We're representing Christ and God's love to that person in that moment. And when you pray for someone, you can ask them if they mind if you put your hand on their shoulder as you pray, although you don't need to do that to be effective. And if that's not feeling appropriate or right in that moment, then that's fine. Often gently and appropriately laying hands on someone, which is a biblical idea for Mark 16:18, supports an attitude of prayerful attention in both of you. But again, read that moment according to where you are and who you're with. If it's a woman that I'm praying for, as a man, I always like to have another woman present if I'm going to ask if I can put my hand on her shoulder as we pray. So I always make sure that that dynamic is in play. And as you start, pray for someone in this all the Things season, first, wait on the Lord for guidance as to how he wants you to pray. Listen with your heart, then pray for what comes to you. And just a note here I've noted through the years and I've done this, many of us just go right to praying out of compassion, out of empathy. What we have in our heart, what we sense immediately, the Lord giving to us. But sometimes just that 10 seconds, that 20, 30 seconds of listening before you begin is a moment for the Lord to whisper something to you that incisively is going to be a way that he is Going to show that person that he sees them, knows them, and loves them deeply. We're going to be talking more about that later, but I want to get the pump primed. I want to get us started in getting this question, may I pray for you from our hearts? Because we can pray for them without being with them, but I want to get it up to coming out of our mouths and creating a space with Jesus, seeing what the Father's already doing for God to do something in that all the things way that connects us to all that Jesus began to do and to teach. Okay, so when you finish praying for someone, leave the person with a word of encouragement and a blessing at the very least, even if you're praying for healing. And maybe they are healed or they experience God's peace or they're not healed yet, yet, and they're just thankful you prayed. Whatever happens there, everyone. And this was something that I heard many, many times over my years in the vineyard movement. You always want everyone to leave with a sense of God's love for them. At the very least that God loves him. And that's why it's so important that our demeanor be full of the fruits of the spirit, gentleness and humility as Jesus self described himself. Kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control, all those kinds of things. They should feel that love, that patience in that moment. So leave them with a word of encouragement. Be a blessing, be the love of God to them. And with that prayer, ready, steady, go. Now I want to jump back to our entry. John Wimber once said, faith is spelled R I S K. And when we take small risks of faith, even practicing with people who know us and love us, we begin to see that God does not use the anointed, but rather the obedient, and I mean those as categories. Our obedience. God meets us in that moment of obedience in that person's life. We're not waiting for God to give us a superpower anointing. So we're now a superhero going into all the moments ahead of us. We obey, respond to what the Father's doing, and God meets us in that moment. Okay, Stories of what God is doing through you are just ahead. So get your journal ready. Begin to document names, moments when you've prayed for people. And the Holy Spirit amusement park ride will commence. Now with our kingdom question, may I pray for you in our hearts and in our mouths. Let's begin to do the stuff with Jesus. Here's our prayer. Lord Jesus, I know that the next steps in my relationship with you as an apprentice will Take some risk, but the risk will be worth the reward. Give me peace and courage and great love. As I ask people, may I pray for you in the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. And here are our journal prompts. Again, these are in the book, in the journal. Begin to write these answers out. This is documenting all that God is doing in you and through you. What is your level of peace about asking a few people each week, may I pray for you? Or more specifically, may I pray for you now? Sometimes people respond thinking you're going to pray for them later, and it's like, yes, but you might want to tack on, may I pray for you now? In this moment, wherever you are. You might be at the garage, you might be with a waiter or waitress at a restaurant, you might be with a neighbor. You might just be with a family member or a brother or sister in Christ. Let's begin to practice this. But what is your level of peace about asking a few people this each week? At least one person this week. And then the second question is, what do you think would happen if you practiced asking a few safe people within your friend network? This question again, if I'm learning to figure skate. A friend of mine was a figure skater and he told me at one point, he said, you don't just learn to figure skate overnight. You learn bits, bit by bit by bit. And the goal is to make it look so simple that everyone feels like they could do it. And that's the way it's going to be. But we're starting in the small incremental steps. We're just saying, lord, would you give me peace and rest in my heart about asking someone that question today, Asking maybe a few people, some who know you, some who don't know you over these coming weeks, if I may pray for them and see what begins to happen. Invite the Lord into any places of fear. Risk. Faith is spelled R I S K. But sometimes I've experienced the Holy Spirit just like a balm moving through me. And my love for the person, which is his love moving through me, is so strong, I can't help but ask. And that is what we want to see begin to happen in us. Whether we're introverts, whether we're extroverts, whether we're this personality or that personality or this spiritual gift or that spiritual gift. We can all say to someone, may I pray for you right now? Or even maybe your first step is may I pray for you? And then you go away and pray for them. And maybe the next time it opens up that you feel like you can pray for them in the moment. So our activation for today is today. Make a choice that you will be open to opportunities. We're just and we're just making a choice to be open to opportunities, to ask others, may I pray for you in the days ahead. Go with your discernment. Go with your personality again. You don't need to put on a special voice or have special mannerisms or all of a sudden be God's man or woman of power for the hour. In fact, it's not preferable in my view. We want to normalize spiritual gifts, the Holy Spirit moving in us and through us in very naturally supernatural ways. Go with your sense of peace, go with your sense of timing and begin with friends and fellow believers. So our story is beginning in a new season right now, together in doing the all the things ministry of Jesus. With him, we don't do the ministry. He and his spirit are doing it through us. So today we're going to sing our hymn. It is hymn number three in our Great Redeemer's Praise. Of course, again, you're going to be getting a lot of my favorite hymns and contemporary worship songs. So here's another one, hymn number three, Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, and let's worship together with it and open our hearts to Jesus. Songs are a place we go. Songs are a place we go to meet with God. They're more than words and melodies. So let's enter into this song as we worship with it.
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Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation. O my soul, praise him, for he is thy health and salvation. All ye who hear now to his temple draw near Join me in glad adoration. Praise to the Lord who o' er all things so wondrously raised Shelters the under his wings Yea, so gently sustain it. Hast thou not seen how thy desires e' er have been granted in what he ordained? Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper Thy work and defend Thee. Surely his goodness and mercy here daily attend thee. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do if with his love he befriend Thee. Praise to the Lord. O let all that is in me adore him. All that hath life and breath Come now with praises before him and let the amen sound from his people again Gladly, for aye we adore for Him.
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Amen. What a beautiful hymn, isn't it? I'm very moved by many of these. These words. I just love this moment. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do if with his love he befriend thee. Gosh, this is really what we're doing. We are being and becoming the love of God to others as we experience our own belovedness. It is the overflow of a beloved life to love others well in Jesus name. So let's move forward into these fields. Get your seeds ready and I'll see you on the field. And I'll see you tomorrow for the awakening. I'm Dan.
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Sam.