Bible Text: Acts 4:29 | Speaker: Darlene Sala | Series: Encouraging Words | Frances Havergal, an English hymn writer and musician back in the 1800s, had a group of girls who came to her for singing lessons—a time they enjoyed together so much that after the lessons Frances would walk with them down the street so they could talk a little longer.

A few years later, she was at the bedside of one of these girls who was seriously ill. The girl had become a Christian. But she shared with Frances that at the time of the singing lessons she had been looking for a relationship with Christ but was too shy to ask. She kept hoping Frances would talk to her about it. Of course, Frances didn’t know the girl had a hungry heart, but she felt so terribly sorry that she had not shared about Christ during the hours they spent together, that for years afterwards, when she was tempted to let an opportunity go by to talk about the Lord, the girl’s old-English words rang in her ears: “Ah, Miss Frances, I ought to have been yours!”

What if no one else had talked to her about the Lord—what would have been her eternal destiny? What an encouragement to us to speak boldly about our Savior!

Peter and John, apostles in the early Christian church, prayed that the Lord would give them boldness—in spite of opposition. God had just used them to bring miraculous healing to a crippled man, for which the religious leaders threw them in prison. When they were released, Peter and John immediately got together with fellow believers to report all that had happened, and then together they prayed, “Now, Lord…enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness” (Acts 4:29).

Would that be a good prayer for you and me? “Lord, help us to speak your word with great boldness.” It might make an eternal difference for someone.

Frances Ridley Havergal, Opened Treasures, compiled by William J. Pell (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1962), Feb. 7.