Note: This post first appeared in the June, 2025 newsletter of our local pro-life group, Sonoma County Pro-Life.

As pro-life activists well know, our life on earth is a spiritual war. Ever since the fall of man, the world has been a vast battle-ground on which the sovereign God bids His people to fight—in love and joy—for the good, the true, and the beautiful. In short, to fight for life.

Happily, we know that both within history and at its end, life will triumph over death. But we also know that for God’s people to win their fights, they must pray. As it is written, God will not give His glory to another (Is. 42:8). Therefore, in order to preserve it, He wisely places the treasure of His divine life in jars of clay, so that the surpassing power to do and achieve may belong to Him, and not to us (2 Cor. 4:7). In other words, God is pleased to make us weak, that we may be made strong in Him (2 Cor. 12:10). And so—acutely feeling our powerlessness in the face of all the egregious evils currently threatening human life—we pray.

As I near my 78^th birthday, these truths comfort me greatly. I find I am running out of steam. Health issues, old age, and the urgency of my few remaining tasks press me into the mighty God. If I, the powerless one, am to accomplish anything further, I must lean on Him and pray.

Along these lines, let me share a personal testimony. Years ago—decades, actually—the Lord graciously opened to me a door of prayer, inviting me to call on Him daily for the advance of the cause of the sanctity of human life at home and abroad.

Here is the text He used to issue the invitation:

“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on Me—the One whom they have pierced—and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.” – Zechariah 12:10

While at its heart this text is a prophecy of the conversion of God’s people in the days of His Messiah, I sensed at the time that God wanted me to pray it with special reference to the success of the pro-life movement. And so, on most any given morning you will find me praying something like this:

“Lord, this day and every day, please pour out your Spirit of grace and supplication upon many ones: the unborn, their moms, their dads, and their significant others, that they might look on those whom they have pierced—or think to pierce—turn from their wicked way, and trust in Your Son for forgiveness, peace, and newness of life in love.”

If you are abreast of the every-increasing momentum of the post-Dobbs pro-life movement, you know how abundantly He has been answering that prayer, and multitudes like them.

Is the pro-life movement about actions? Of course. But in my autumn years, when I am increasingly beset by weakness, I now see clearly that before it was ever about actions, it was always about prayer. God-given, Spirit-led prayer—by which He works out His eternal purposes in history—is the invisible fountain-head of all spiritual advance in any movement dear to the heart of heaven: of all calling, wisdom, power, deeds, perseverance, and every victory that ever was or will be won.

Therefore, please pray for me, as I for you, that none of us who are called to the defense of the sanctity of human life will ever take our hands from the plow; that even in great weakness—yes, even upon our death beds—we who are powerless may be found leaning on the Lord, joining with Him in praying that He might cause His Spirit of grace and supplication to fall upon many ones, so that they, in every possible sense, might choose life.

Dean Davis
June, 2025