Spending Hours in Prayer

I used to think there was great virtue in spending hours in prayer. I still believe there is if it is the right kind, but my idea of prayer has changed completely. Scriptural prayer is not begging, crying, pleading; that doesn’t get us anywhere. It is believing that wins.

A prayer may be but a half-dozen sentences, but the sick are made whole, it is believing that makes prayer potent. It is believing that gives power; it is not words, it is faith that gives birth to the words. When you know that “they that believe shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover”; you know it as you know that two and two are four, then things happen.

Then it is not words, but simply this, that you know the moment your hand touches that person they are well. That is faith.

It is not crying, “Oh, God give me; oh, God give me,” it is, “Oh, Father, I thank thee that you HAVE given me.” It is not crying; it is thanking.

I found this, that when once it took me hours to pray through, I know now it had taken hours to reach the place where I believed the Word and acted upon it.

The greatest miracle of Jesus’ ministry was raising Lazarus from the dead. He lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank thee that thou hearest me.” He said to His disciples, “Roll away the stone,” and He knows that His Father had heard Him say that, and now, when He said “Lazarus, come forth,” He said it in a loud voice.
Some would have said it in a low voice, then, if his prayer was not answered, he would not have been put to shame. Jesus’ utter abandonment to His own faith thrills us. And when He said, “Lazarus, come forth,” Lazarus had to come forth, just as the sea had to become quiet when He said, “Peace, be still.”

Jesus believed and His prayers were brief, His thanksgiving must have been transcendently beautiful.

So I have learned this, that words without faith are wasted words. It is when believing gives birth to words that words become mighty.