Sometime back a member of our church passed along a worn copy of E.M. Bounds’ book, Preacher and Prayer. Bounds is known for his emphases on prayer and his With Christ in the School of Prayer was one of the first books on prayer I ever read. As for the current book, it laid in my stack of “need to read” books for quite some time before I finally picked it up and I’m disappointed that I waited so long.
In short, Bounds expounds on the necessity of prayer in the life of the preacher (pastor) for himself and his people. This is not devotional reading, Bounds’ words and his numerous examples of other pastors from the past serve to challenge the pastor to be a man of much prayer. Where is the power for preaching? Prayer. Where is the power to serve your people? Prayer. Where will the compassion and care for your people be found? In the prayer closet. Bounds urges, “The preacher is commissioned to pray as well as preach. His mission is incomplete if he does not do both well.”
Writing in the early part of the twentieth century, Bounds was concerned that the cares of the age were robbing pastors of the time to pray, “In these days of hurry and bustle, of electricity and steam, men will not take time to pray.” Certainly if the technology of his day served to distract men from the duty to pray, the technology of today is an obstacle that must be overcome. “Short devotions are the bane of deep piety,” so we must redeem the time that we have. Our technology must be harnessed for good and not ill.
What are the obstacles to your prayer life? I have found that constant connectedness presents a real challenge to my prayer life. The easy access to the world at the touch of my fingertips tempts me to engage with everything except the Lord. Business is another obstacle. We live in a culture that expects and demands immediate results and busyness from everyone. The praying life is one that must separate from busyness to focus on the hard work of interceding before the Lord. Finally, I find that my prayer life is challenged because I struggle to believe in the power and efficacy of prayer. If I truly believed all that God says about prayer, I would be much more inclined to devote my time to it.
God has challenged me through his word and other reading lately to become a man of prayer. I am finding, however, that becoming a man of prayer does not happen by accident and it does not happen easily. If I am to do away with the temptations toward busyness and technology, I must rise early. It seems to only be early in the morning before the rest of the world stirs that I can make the appropriate time to intercede before the Lord on my own behalf and on the behalf of others. I am certainly no expert on prayer and I can only strive to be the man of prayer that God has called me to be, but I am ever more convinced that ministers of the gospels must be men who are great in prayer.
Photo Credit: https://realmomentum.org/there-is-power-in-prayer-4/
