“He must increase, but I must decrease.” What happens when this becomes reality? As I looked at John the Baptist’s narrative in Scripture, it prompted a prayer. Would you like to join me . . .

Lord Jesus, we worship You as the Lord of life and the only One worthy of glory, honor, and praise. Thank you for allowing us to be bearers of Your message and Your Spirit, but please forgive us for our doubts and fears when we experience times of “decrease,” so Your glory will be greater than our story.

Thank You for not being driven away by our misconceptions of who the Messiah King truly is and what You came to do. If Your own relative—the one who proclaimed you as the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, knew he was not worthy to remove Your sandals, declared You would baptize the people with the Holy Spirit and fire, prophesied that You would clear the threshing floor and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire, baptized You in the Jordan River, saw the Spirit (dove) rest and remain upon You, and heard the Father’s voice from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”—could sit in a prison cell with hope vanishing and doubt increasing, surely we are not exempt from occasional lapses into fear.

You sent John’s questioning disciples back with a message of hope they had witnessed with their own eyes and heard with their own ears. You even said of John the Baptist that among those who were born among women, there was not a greater prophet.

Thankfully, You are still giving sight to the blind, causing the lame to walk, cleansing the leper, opening deaf ears, raising the dead, and empowering the message of the good news to be preached to the poor—physically and spiritually.

Like John, whose voice we never hear again before he faced Herod’s chopping block, may believers bravely face the suffering in their world with the hope that Messiah can and will deliver, but if He chooses not to, the world is not worthy to unlatch their sandals.

The gospel will be preached to all nations! God’s kingdom will come, and His will be done in earth as it is in heaven.