Prayer a Sacred Privilege

IN THE Bible we are told to “pray without ceasing,”[1] yet we live in a time where few remember to even pray as they wake in the morning. Prayer seems to be a bygone exercise for many today. Why is it so?

Many people have failed to experience the simplicity of prayer. They tend to think that beyond their meal and bed times or special devotionals that its service is left only to the “professionals.” However, when the Lord Jesus faced torture and death on the cross, He willingly did so that we might be able to enter into fellowship with the Father through Him at anytime.

A 17^th century French monk, known to the world as “Brother Lawrence,” first entered into the monastery with great plans for devoting his life to prayer. But, he soon found himself to be under the weight of daily chores from working in the farm to going to town for supplies, or cooking and washing dishes for the other brothers in the monastery. 

It was this kitchen work that he disliked the most, but where he found himself to be employed. He became very discouraged at first, for his one desire in becoming a monk had been to have communion with God. But his busy life in the monastery just did not seem to allow time for the devotion he sought. However, through his humility and simplicity, he discovered that the little kitchen could be his church.  “Lord of all pots and pans and things… Make me a saint by getting meals and washing the plates!”

Brother Lawrence learned a valuable secret to prayer: “It can be done anywhere and anytime.” As he was washing the pots and pans, he was also kneeling before the throne of the Lord. He did not need to set a special time of day to come before God, nor did he have to have a certain reason for doing so. God was real to him, and ever present. He had learned how to “practice the presence of God”[2] in his life. At the end of his fifteen years of service in the kitchen position, Brother Lawrence said that he had accustomed himself to do everything there for the love of God, and with prayer upon all occasions. With that he had found everything easy.

It is a great misunderstanding to think that our times of prayer should be any different from other times. This is not to say a set time or place of prayer is not necessary. However, many are quick to leave their prayer at that set time and place. Our constant meditation should be on the Lord and His Word throughout the “day and night.”[3] It is both a duty and privilege to set myself to a state of constant prayer before the Lord God, my Father!

 

Intercessory Prayer

An early pioneer missionary to India by the name of John Hyde[4] felt called by the Lord to a special service of prayer, giving hours and sometimes even days of his time to the Lord. The Lord had given him a great burden for the millions of lost people in India. John often went without both food and sleep when he would be hit with this burden. To some he seemed eccentric, and others even thought that he was lazy, giving no thought to the spiritual battle which the Lord had called him to join.

The prayers of John Hyde however were not lost in the wind, for the missions of India at the time saw great numbers coming to know Jesus. John’s own mission and personal outreach experienced a great season of growth during his times of prayer.

Intercessory prayer often comes upon one as a great concern for another person or an event. Your heart burns within as your mind and soul pour over the one who God has placed there. Not all are like John Hyde, having this burden of prayer laid upon them day after day. But I fear that many today miss the Lord’s call to this service. And then, others are not really willing to spend such time given to prayer when the results may be far off or may never be seen by them.

During my first year and a half of serving the Lord as a missionary in Nigeria, West Africa, a great burden was laid upon me to pray for two young men who lived in the States. Almost without fail, everyday as I would sit down at my desk to work I would be hit with the burden of prayer. I didn’t know either of them very well when I left for Africa, and I didn’t have any contact with them after my departure. But as the Lord would call me to lift them up I would feel what I call “intelligence coming from the Spirit.” It was as if the Lord was telling me just what these two were facing at that very moment.

Upon returning to the States, I renewed my acquaintance with the two who I had hardly known when I left. But now it was as if their struggle in pursuing the Lord had been mine as well. One of the two would return with me to Africa and go on to later be a co-founder and laborer of our mission work in Belize, Central America and beyond.

Intercessory prayer is sometimes hard to define. It can take a somewhat different shape and form for each person. However, it will always be God- centered and led. My challenge here is to say that the next time you have an old friend, co-worker, family member, passing acquaintance, or the people of a foreign land come into your mind, stop and lift them up before the Lord. If you do not know just what to pray for them, then ask the Lord, step back, and let Him lead. 

 

Secret Prayers

Jesus once gave His disciples the challenge to not be like the hypocrites who loved to pray in public so that they would be seen by others. He told them instead to go into their inner room, close the door, and pray to the Lord in secret there. Those who were quick to pray in public were often times looking for the praise of men. However, those who prayed in secret would receive their reward not from man, but from their Father in heaven who sees all things.[5]

John G. Paton, pioneer missionary to the New Hebrides Pacific Islands, grew up in a house where the inner room, or prayer closet, was put into daily use. He writes, “After meals, we saw our father retire to the closet. Though the thing was too sacred to be talked about, we knew that prayers were being poured out there for us, for we occasionally heard his voice trembling and pleading. We learned to slip in and out past that door on tiptoe, not to disturb the holy communion. The outside world might not know, but we knew the source of that happy light that was always dawning on my father’s face like a newborn’s smile. It was a reflection from the Divine Presence.”

“We loved him all the more when we saw how much it cost him to punish us. If we did anything seriously wrong, father went first to his closet for prayer, and we knew that he was laying the whole matter before God. That was the severest part of the punishment for me to bear!  I could have defied any amount of mere penalty, but this spoke to my conscience as a message from God.”

John Paton’s father did not leave his prayers to his special little room. He was often seen walking down the road with his hat in hand and lips moving in silent prayer. It was this constant devotion to God that impacted John the most, causing him to think, “He, walked with God, why not I?” [6]

 

Thirsting After the Lord

In talking with the woman at the well, Jesus told her, “…whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst…”[7]

For Hudson Taylor, an early missionary to China, this verse was very confusing to him. Though he knew the Lord, he still felt a deep spiritual thirsting.  Taylor had been one of the first missionaries to take strong steps to identify with the Chinese by adopting their way of dress and living closer to their own lifestyle. He was also one of the first to take the Word of God into the interior of China. 

Taylor was a man of great faith who looked to the Lord to meet all of his needs, but his thirst for the Lord seemed so great. After “days of sorrow and nights of heaviness,” upon reflection on the words “Whoever drinks of the water I shall give him…,” the answer seemed to come to him all at once. He wrote, “It is not ‘Whoever has drunk,’ but ‘Whoever drinks’; it is not a one time event, or even many, but a continuous habit of the soul.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”[8]

Taylor now realized that his thirst and hunger were not satisfied because he had missed an important step. He had needed to sit at the Lord’s table daily to drink and eat of the holy food of the Lord. This food is not physical but of a spiritual nature. It can only be found at the table of Jesus in prayer and surrender to God.

Taylor concluded, “It seems to me that where many of us err is in leaving our drinking in the past, while our thirst continues present. What we need is to be drinking—yes, thankful for each occasion which drives us to drink ever more deeply of the Living Water.”[9]

 

Our Five Outlets of Influence for the Lord

First: Through the life we are – just simply who we are. If we are right with God, His power will be constantly flowing out, though we may not even be conscious of it. There will be an eager desire to serve.

Second: Through the lips—to tell others of our new life. It may be said stammeringly and falteringly.  But if said with the desire to please the Lord, it will be God-blessed. I have heard a man talk. He stuttered and blushed and got his grammar badly tangled, but my heart burned as I listened. And I have heard a man talk with smooth speech, and it rolled off me as easily as it rolled out of him. Do your best, and leave the rest.  If we are in touch with God, His fire burns whether the tongue stammers or has good control of its powers.

Third: Through our service—what we do. It may be done bunglingly and blunderingly. Your best may not be the best, but if it be your best it will bring a harvest.

Gladys Aylward, missionary to China in the 1930’s and 40’s, said near the end of her life, “I was not God’s first choice for what I have done for China. There was somebody else…I don’t know who it was—God’s first choice. It must have been a man—a wonderful man. A well-educated man. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he was not willing… And God looked down… And saw Gladys Aylward.”[10]

Fourth: Through our money—what we do not keep, but loosen out for God. Money comes the nearest to omnipotence of anything we handle.

And,

Fifth: Through our prayer—what we claim in Jesus name. 

And, by all odds, the greatest of these is the outlet through prayer. The power of a life touches just one spot, but the touch is tremendous. What is there we think to be compared with a pure, unselfish, gently strong life. Yet its power is lim­ited to one spot where it is being lived. Power through the lips depends wholly upon the life back of the lips. Words that come brokenly are often made burning and eloquent by the life behind them. And words that are smooth and easy, often have all their meaning sapped by the life back of them. Power through service may be great, and may be touching many spots, yet it is always less than that of a life. Power through money depends wholly upon the motive back of the money. Begrudged money, stained money, soils the treas­ury. That which comes nearest to omnipotence also comes nearest to impotence. But the power loosened out through prayer is as tremendous as the power of a true fragrant life and, mark you, and, may touch not one spot but wherever in the whole round world you may choose to turn it.

The greatest thing any one can do for God and for man is to pray. It is not the only thing. But it is the chief thing. For if a man is to pray right, he must first be right in his motives and life. And if a man be right, and put the practice of praying in its right place, then his serving and giving and speaking will be fairly fragrant with the presence of God.

The great people of the earth today are the people who pray. I do not mean those who talk about prayer; nor those who say they believe in prayer; nor yet those who can explain about prayer; but I mean these people who take time and pray. They have not time.  It must be taken from something else. This something else is impor­tant—very important, and pressing, but still less important and less pressing than prayer. There are people that put prayer first, and group the other items in life’s schedule around and after prayer.

These are the people today who are doing the most for God; in winning souls; in solving problems; in awakening churches; in supplying both men and money for mission posts; in keeping fresh and strong these lives far off in sacrificial service on the foreign field where the thickest fighting is going on; in keeping the old earth sweet a while longer.

 

The Secret Service of Prayer

Not all of those who enter into this service of prayer are considered to be giants in man’s eyes. However, to God they are all GIANTS in this wholly secret service. We do not know who these people are, though sometimes shrewd guesses may be made. I often think that some­times we pass some plain-looking man or woman quietly slipping out of church; wearing nice but used clothing which they bought from the thrift-store; walking out to their out-dated car; their belly has not known the fattening of food from restaurants. We hardly give them a passing thought, and do not know, nor guess, that perhaps they are the one who is doing far more for their church, and for the world, and for God, than a hundred who would claim more attention and thought, because they pray. They truly pray as the Spirit of God inspires and guides.

This is not to say that one has to live such a meek life to have an effective prayer life. But what one does with what the Lord has given to him is a good indicator of just where his priorities are.

 

In Touch with a Planet 

Prayer opens a whole planet to a man’s activ­ities. I can as really be touching hearts for God in far away India or China through prayer, as though I were there. Not in as many ways as though there, but...Understand me; I think the highest possible privilege of service is in those far off lands. There the need is greatest! And if one may go there—happy man!—if one be privileged to go to the honored place of service he may then use all five outlets direct in the spot where he is.

Yet this is only one spot. But his relation­ship to the world is as wide as God’s, and his sympathies toward it should be the same. A man may be in Africa, but if his heart be in touch with Jesus it will be burning for a world. Prayer puts us into direct dynamic touch with a world as we lay the place, the people and the missionaries there at the throne of the Lord.

A man may go inside his room, and shut the door. As he pours his heart out before the Lord with cares for far away India for a half-hour—it seems so much to say—he has just spent a half-hour of his life serving India for God, almost as though he were there. If it be true, surely you and I must get more half-hours for this secret service. Without any doubt he may turn his key to the room and be for a bit of time serving China through the power of prayer. 

Through prayer you may give a new meaning to the printed page being read by someone in Africa. You may give a new tongue of flame to a preacher or teacher. You may make it easier for men and women to accept the story of Jesus, and then to yield themselves to Him—a people who were led by evil spirits, and by prejudices for generations—you may make it easier for them to accept the story of grace, and, if need be, to cut with loved ones, and step out and up into a new life.

Some earnest heart enters an objection here, perhaps. You are thinking that if you were there you could influence men by your personal contact, by the living voice. So you could. And there must be the personal touch. Would that there were many times more going for that blessed per­sonal touch. But this is the thing to mark keenly both for those who may go, and for those who stay: no matter where you are you do more through your praying than through your personal­ity. If you were in Central America you could add your personality to your prayer. That would be a great thing to do. But whether there or here, you must first win the victory, every step, every life, every foot of the way, in secret, in the spirit-realm, and then add the mighty touch of your personality in service. You can do more than pray, after you have prayed. But you can not do more than pray until you have prayed. And just there is where we have all seemed to make a slip at times, and many of us are yet making it—a bad slip. We think we can do more where we are through our service, then pray to give power to service. But we can do no thing of real power until we have given our time in prayer before the Throne.

Here is a man by my side. I can talk to him. I can bring my personality to bear upon him, that I may win him. But before I can influence his will a jot for God, I must first have won the victory in the secret place. Intercession is one way that we fight for the victory over the darkness that holds them. Service is taking the field after the darkness is driven off. Such service is limited by the limitation of personality to one place. This spiritual-telephone called prayer puts a man into direct dynamic touch with a planet.

There are some of our friends who think themselves of the practical sort who say, “The great thing is work: prayer is good, and right, but the great need is to be doing something practical.” And some are even quick to say that the one who prays is lazy. The truth however is that when one understands about prayer, and puts prayer in its right place in his life, he finds a new motive burning in his bones to be doing. And further he finds that it is the doing that grows out of praying that is mightiest in touching human hearts.  And he finds further yet, with a great joy, that he may be doing something for an entire world. His service becomes as broad as the Lord’s love for this world.

How does it come to pass that a woman in Iowa prays for the conversion of her skeptical husband, and he, while on a business trip to Las Vegas, and in full ignorance of her purpose becomes conscious and repeatedly conscious of the presence and power of the God in whose exist­ence he does not believe. And then, months afterwards, with his keen, business trained mind, finds the calen­dar to fit together the beginning of her praying with the beginning of his unwelcome con­sciousness? Will some one kindly explain? Ah! Who can adequately! Yet the facts, easily ascertainable, are there, and evidenced in the complete change in the life and calling of the man.

 

The Broad Inner Horizon 

This suggests at once that the rightly rounded Believer life has two sides: the outside, and the inside. To most of us the outer side seems the greater.  The living, the serving, the giving, the doing, the absorption in life’s work, the contact with men, with the great majority the sheer struggle for existence—these take the greater thought and time of us all. They seem to be the great business of life even to those of us who thoroughly believe in the spiritual life.

But when the real eyes open, the inner (spiritual) eyes that see the unseen, the change of perspective is first crazy, then terrific, then sad. Crazy, because of the change of proportions; terrific, because of the issues at stake; sad, because of strong men that don’t see, and push on spending splendid strength whittling sticks. The outer side is narrow in its limits. It has to do with food and clothing, bricks and lumber, time and the passing hour, the culture of the mind, the joys of social contact, the smoothing of the way for the suffering. And it needs not to be said, that these are right; they belong in the picture; they are its physical background.

The inner side includes all of these, and stretches infinitely beyond. Its limits are broad; broad as the home of man. It touches the inner spirit. It moves in upon the motives, the loves, the heart. It moves up to the arm of God in cooperation with His great love-plan for a world.

Shall we follow for a day one who has gotten the true perspective? Here is the outer side: a humble home, a narrow circle, tending the baby, patching, sewing, cooking, calling; or, measuring dry goods, cutting grass, checking up a ledger, feeding the swift machinery, endless stitch­ing, gripping the wheel of a car, pushing the plow, lending the stock, doing the chores, tiresome ex­amination papers; and all the rest of the endless, endless, doing, day by day, of the commonplace treadmill things, that must be done, that fill out the day of the great majority of human lives. This one whom we are following unseen is doing quietly, cheerily his daily round, with a bit of sunshine in his face, a light in his eye, and lightness in his step. The commonplace place becomes uncommon by reason of the presence of this man with the uncommon spirit. He is working for God.  No, better, he is working with God. He has an unseen Friend at his side. That changes everything. The com­mon drudgery ceases to be common, and ceases to be drudgery because it is done for such an uncommon Master. That is the outer, the narrow side of this life: not narrow in itself but in its proportion to the whole.

Now, hold your breath, and look, for here is the inner side where the larger work of life is being done.  Here is the quiet bit of time alone with God, with the Word. The horizon of this room is as broad as the globe. God’s presence with this man makes it so.

This is the true Believer’s life. This man is winning souls and refreshing lives in these far-off lands and in nearby places as though he were in each place. This is the Lord’s plan. The true follower of Jesus has as broad of a horizon as his Master. Jesus thought in continents and seas. His followers pray in continents and seas.

The Great Commission is to “GO” and make disciples. For those of you who long to do so, but are unable to for whatever reason, send your prayers. They will do more to further the spread of the Gospel than anything else can. For those who have responded to this call and left for a foreign land, remember the fact that prayer must come first—before service, before ministry. A life of prayer is the source of true power for the Believer. The call of Jesus is the call to prayer. The mission of prayer is to win a lost world to the Savior!