Ezekiel 22:30 Standing in the Gap

In my morning prayers, I pray for nations.  And peoples.  Some people are not defined or limited by nations. 

Sometimes, and lately even more often, I have asked God if it makes any difference. 

After all, nations are big things.  How can the prayers of one person make a difference there?

Today I read two passages on the subject.  If I had only read one, I might not have paid as much attention, but I read two.  So far.  I’m not done reading yet.

Psalm 106:23  (NASB95) Therefore He [God] said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen one stood in the breach before Him, to turn away His wrath from destroying them.

Ezekiel 22:30 (NASB95)  ³⁰ “I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.

In each case, it was one man.  Just one.

Two times the Bible says that God wanted to destroy the nation of Israel and that He would make a new one for and through Moses. 

Exodus 32:9,10 (NASB95) ⁹ The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. ¹⁰ “Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.”

Numbers 14:11.12 (NASB95) ¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst? ¹² “I will smite them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.”

One man stood between the nation and God.

No, I am not a Moses.  Numbers 12:6–8 (NASB95)  ⁶ He [God] said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. ⁷ “Not so, with My servant Moses, He is faithful in all My household; ⁸ With him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark sayings, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?”

But then in the passage from Ezekiel, God was looking for anybody.  It didn’t have to be a Moses.  And He didn’t find anybody. 

I have some prayer requests that have gone unanswered for a very long time.  Decades.  But how can I not pray for them?  If there is a need, if you shut your heart to that need, I think that’s the kind of thing God looks for at the judgment.  If something is worth praying for, then it’s worth praying for even when there is no answer in sight.

So I, one man, will continue to pray for nations, for peoples.  I’m not looking for awards in heaven.  I’m looking for God to do a work in my lifetime.