What can I do, Lord? Perhaps you’ve spent a good amount of time asking that question. You’ve come to a crossroads. It’s either giving up on the thing you’ve been praying for or taking one more step further with and in faith.
I’m here today, sounding off the bullhorns, to encourage you to the latter. There is a next step of faith, and you can take it. The following is an excerpt from a Bible study I recently wrote and taught. Check it out and I’ll meet you back for a few comments about how you might begin to depend upon the Spirit of God in your specific situation.
I am currently in a season of waiting for God to move in some pretty big ways within my family. It is a period of intercessory prayer, excruciating wait and anticipatory hope. All in one. Some days are one of the three more than the others. For example, sometimes I am so overwhelmed with the wait I feel as if nothing is going to change. It’s on those days I will break if I don’t put the weight of the wait on the Lord. I find myself on my knees doing just that. Other times I am so filled with a hope of all the great things God is going to do in the lives of my loved ones that I just “know that I know” that a breakthrough is about to come. On those days, I can’t help but sing and praise God all throughout our home. And most every single day, with this wait, I am praying, begging, pleading and interceding to my powerful, faithful God on behalf of my people. In this prayer, I am simply saying, “Come Holy Spirit, come!”
Why pray for the Holy Spirit to come? Because he is the one who moves in ways I cannot move—into the hearts of my loved ones. He is the one who literally goes into places I cannot go—in and through every situation and circumstance that they face. He is the one who draws, pursues, comforts, convicts and guides His people (our people) into all truth. This is according to Scripture. I pray the Word of God over people, places and purposes because in it is the power. It’s his power to save. It’s his power to move. It’s his power to sustain. It’s his power to mark them with the blood of Jesus and protect them from all destruction and harm. My purpose is to intercede, be a witness, love and reflect Christ, be discerning and diligent to the next thing he calls me to do, say or walk in. And it all begins and ends with, the coming of the Holy Spirit.[i]
So, the answer to our question, “What can I do, Lord?” is to ask the Holy Spirit to come. To come and penetrate hearts and lives. To come and reveal himself with such magnificent power that no one can deny he’s come. To deliver, to save, to heal, to bring peace and restoration. It’s the best prayer to pray!
Giving up at the crossroads is not an option. There’s only one way and we can choose it. Pray for the Spirit of God to come. To you. To them. To the situations and the circumstances. To do what only he himself can do.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13)
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with your forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14: 16-17)
If we believe that he can do it, then what are we waiting for? Ask him now. Believe he will, now. Listen, obey and watch for his coming. Then listen and obey some more. He will arrive in his own way, in his own timing and accordance to his own plan. But friends, he will come. And nothing about your prayed-over-person (and people) will be the same once he does.
[i] (Hoos, Jamie. Flourish: Created. Redeemed. Purposed.2025)
Jamie Hoos 