"If Weak in Prayer, We Are Weak Everywhere"

Author Mark Tomlinson, in his biography of Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994)...

"He especially deplored the weakness of the praying of most local churches. He felt the strongest meeting of the church should be the church prayer meeting, but said that it was generally the weakest, if it even existed at all.” In his lifetime Ravenhill saw the daily or weekly prayer meeting disappearing from most local churches. This grieved him because he “directly connected the effectiveness of true ministry with the prayer life of the church."

Ravenhill often quoted his mentor, Samuel Chadwick, who had written...

"The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray. No man is greater than his prayer life."

In all the books, articles and blogs currently being written to urge believers into ministry and service, very few talk about the importance of prayer in ministry, about  the necessity of maintaining a vital connection with the God whom we serve. When we don't spend as much time in prayer as we do in ministry, aren't we serving in our OWN strength and putting ourselves in the place God deserves? When we value "doing" and neglect prayer, it's not a very far leap to expecting God to be thankful for what we've done FOR Him!

And when we do pray, how often we view it solely as a source of benefit to ourselves, as a means of addressing our own personal needs and concerns, as a one-way street. Ravenhill wrote...

The praying of a Christian can become a ritual. The place of prayer is more than a dumping ground for all our anxieties, threats and fears. The place of prayer is not a place to drop the shopping list before the throne of God with endless supplies and limitless power.

I believe the place of prayer is not only a place where I lose my burdens, but also a place where I get a burden. He shares my burden and I share his burden.

This is an area where I suspect most modern believers need to evaluate themselves. Let's encourage one another to model  prayerful dependence upon God! Let's be known as people of prayer!

[This biography of Ravenhill is available for Kindle. Amazon has a free Kindle app for personal computers which I use to read works not available elsewhere. They also have free apps for most mobile devices.]

[via Tim Challies' blog]

[Related posts: "Pray Without Ceasing"  "Who's Running the Show?"]