Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
James 5:16-18
In the 1500s, Scotland was torn by religious division. Mary Queen of Scots was insisting on imposing Catholicism on the entire country. Among the reformers who opposed her was John Knox. Forced for a time to flee to Europe for safety from Mary’s soldiers, Knox wrote several books arguing for Scotland to be set free. His sermons were printed and shared across the country, and when Knox returned, the tide turned. As the reformers gained power, Mary was said to have remarked, “I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.” Knox’s preaching was powerful, but it was his prayers that even his enemies respected. Before Knox died, the fight for religious freedom was won, and Mary was removed from power.
There are many good and important things that we can and should do in God’s work. But there is nothing that is more necessary than fervent, diligent, consistent prayer. Prayer takes us beyond what we are able to accomplish with our own resources and opens the pipeline for the power, wisdom, and wealth of Heaven to flow into our world. The incredible privilege of coming into God’s presence to present our needs, not to a distant deity but to a loving Father, sadly too often gets overlooked. We allow the busyness of life and our pride and self-confidence to keep us from praying as we should.
There are no substitutes for prayer. Nothing else deepens our relationship with God like prayer does, and nothing else is promised to us as a means for us to have our needs met by God.
