Troublesome Topic: Consider Some Heroes of Prayer
Lesson 9 of 11I encourage you to read biographies, not novels. Reading about the lives of real people encourages and challenges us. We see in them how God used ordinary people to do extraordinary things. We see what made them useful instruments in God’s hands. “The men who have most fully illustrated Christ in their character, and have most powerfully affected the world for Him, have been men who spent so much time with God as to make it a notable feature of their lives.”
Go to footnote numberThere are many who serve as inspiration due to a life of prayer. However, allow me to lift up two men for your consideration:
George Muller relied solely on prayer to provide for the needs of 2,000 orphans. He also established the Scriptural Knowledge Institute which funded schools around the world with a total student enrollment over 63 years of 121,683 students, supported hundreds of missionaries in 25 countries, supplied the needed funds to publish and send out 281,652 Bibles, 1,448,662 New Testaments, and 111,489,067 pamphlets and tracts.
Go to footnote numberThese funds were also supplied through Muller’s prayers. He never asked any man for funds, only his heavenly Father. When people asked what his financial needs were his response was always that people should give as God was leading them to. He had a simple yet deep faith because he was well-rooted in the word of God. We know from his journal that he read the Bible through over 200 times, 100 of them on his knees.
Go to footnote numberBecause he kept careful records of answers to prayer, Mr. Muller estimated that, during his 63 years of serving God, he saw the direct answer to over 50,000 specific prayers.
Go to footnote numberDavid Brainerd was a missionary to the American Indians in the 18th century. His short life was characterized by much sickness; he often coughed up blood from his lungs, and suffered terrible weakness daily. Notwithstanding, he pressed on to bring the Gospel to the Indians. But the most notable part of his journals is his emphasis on prayer.
Though he died at the young age of twenty-nine (in the house of Jonathan Edwards), his impact on the world was felt for generations. He is credited with being the specific inspiration for many of the greatest missionaries and evangelists of the 19th century. “From the matchless prayer life of David Brainerd, outstanding stars in the firmament of soul-winners have caught their initial light: Payson, McCheyne, Carey, Edwards, Wesley—men of renown, yet all kindled by one flame, and all debtors to the sickly but supplicating Brainerd.”
Go to footnote numberWhat Is Normal?
“American culture trains us to be in a hurry. Everything is instant, and that instant expectation has a tendency to warp our view of prayer.”
Go to footnote numberOur expectations of instant answers to prayer cause us to see the “heroes of prayer” as fanatical.
“There has been a movement afoot in the past 40 years in the church to diminish the example that these prayer-heroes have set for us to follow. Ever so subtly the idea that what these men and women did with their lives was ‘extreme’ and ‘unnecessary,’ and therefore unmerited to mimic and find inspiration in today, has crept into the modern church’s thinking.”
Go to footnote numberWe think of ourselves as normal, and therefore whatever is more than what we do is extreme. Maybe what the “heroes of prayer” did was God’s idea of normal, and we are the ones that are abnormal. Unfortunately, we are abnormal in the wrong direction.
Leonard Ravenhill summarizes the situation with the eloquence he was known for when he said, “In the matter of New Testament, Spirit-inspired, hell-shaking, world-breaking prayer, never has so much been left by so many to so few.”
Go to footnote numberDon’t Beat Yourself Up
We should all strive to deepen our walk with God by enjoying more time with Him in prayer. However, we should not beat ourselves up over our past failures; that is Satan’s self-appointed task, and he doesn’t need out help. So don’t beat yourself up, just make the changes you need to make and keep moving forward.
The next lesson is Simplicity
Footnotes
1
E. M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer, p. 54.
2
Basil Miller, George Muller, Man of Faith and Miracles, pp. 104-112.
3
Basil Miller, George Muller, Man of Faith and Miracles. p. 142.
4
Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries, pp. 79-81.
5
Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries, pp. 79-81.
6
Eric & Leslie Ludy, Wrestling Prayer p. 173.
7
Eric & Leslie Ludy, Wrestling Prayer, p. 137.
8
Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries, p. 10.