Do you ever think about the Internet as an answer to centuries of saints’ prayers that “the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored” (2 Thessalonians 3:1)?

We must not take this marvel for granted. In reading this post, you are experiencing something that just a couple of decades ago was the stuff of sci-fi imagination and a century ago was unimaginable.

With a few keyboard or touch-screen strokes, you can read a blog post, listen to a sermon, watch a video, read a book, look up the definition of any word, compare Bible translations, do Greek word searches, access more articles than you can possibly read on the latest breaking news, view detailed satellite images of any city in the world, plan your road trip, listen to all your music, find out where a movie is playing, and view the latest picture of your friend’s baby. All from your desk or kitchen counter or coffee shop or bus seat — in Boise or Beijing.

The Miraculous Internet

The Internet is stupendous. It borders on the miraculous. And it has ascended to a level of pervasiveness and dominance in global societies faster than any technological advancement in human history. Many of us now spend a great deal of our time in work and leisure using a medium that only a handful of people were using when Bill Clinton was first elected president.

Never before have we been able to share so much information with so many people around the globe so easily and instantaneously. We live in a previously inconceivable age of unparalleled potential for the spread of good and evil.

And that’s why we want you to pray with us.

Our Mission for This Medium

Desiring God is a Web ministry. We didn’t start that way. When we launched this work in 1994, we didn’t have a website. We weren’t even thinking about one. All we had was an @aol.com email address, which now is long retired! Folks had to (snail) mail to order cassette tapes and books from us.

Our first very simple website appeared in 1996. Over time, we used it more and more extensively until 2006 when we made all of our resources available on it free of charge. At that point, we knew that it was the primary way God was calling us to fulfill our mission. Since then, we have narrowed our strategic focus almost exclusively on using this astounding medium for gospel spreading.

By God’s grace, the result has been this: in our first 12 years we mailed out about 500,000 resources, but in the last 12 months we had 22 million visits to our website (about 5.5 million of which were from outside the U.S.), and this number has doubled in less than three years.

And that’s why we want you to pray with us.

How You Can Pray

I believe the Internet is an answer to a billion prayers. It is a provision from God to serve his growing global church in these last days to help speed the fulfillment of her mission and her Lord’s return.

And we want to be part of that. The redesigned website we just launched is all about serving all the souls represented by 22 million recent visits, and the millions more, Lord willing, who will visit in 2014. We’re not aiming at being the coolest website. We’re aiming at being as effective as we can be in spreading a passion for God’s supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. And we know that a maximally useful website is the primary strategy God has provided for us.

So even right now, would you join us in praying for desiringGod.org?

• Pray that millions more will see and savor Jesus Christ in such a transforming way because of what they find here that their faith becomes contagious!

• Pray that the Holy Spirit will illumine the Scriptures here and ignite unquenchable revival fires in churches in the most unexpected places in the world.

• Pray that what is read, listened to, and watched here will help fuel the effort to reach the unreached.

• Pray that we will steward this astounding medium with prayerful dependence and godly wisdom.

• Pray for Pastor John, that he will have energy and Spirit-empowered unction in all his efforts.

• And pray that we will continue to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8) and pursue the “holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).