Illustration results for Prayer: Persistence
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PRAYER AND PRESIDENT LINCOLN
A clergyman from New York, during a call on President Lincoln at the White House, said: "I have not come to ask any favors of you, Mr. President; I have only come to say that the loyal people of the North are sustaining you and will continue to do so. We are giving you all that we have, the lives of our sons as well as our confidence and our prayers. You must know that no boy’s father or mother ever kneels in prayer these days without asking God to give you strength and wisdom."
His eyes brimming with tears, Mr. Lincoln replied: "But for those prayers, I should have faltered and perhaps failed long ago. Tell every father and mother you know to keep on praying, and I will keep on fighting, for I know God is on our side."
As the clergyman started to leave the room, Mr. Lincoln held him by the hands and said: "I suppose I may consider this as sort of a pastoral call?"
"Yes," replied the clergyman.
"Out in our country," replied Lincoln, "when a parson makes a pastoral call, it was always the custom for the folks to ask him to lead in prayer, and I should like to ask you to pray with me today. Pray that I may have the strength and the wisdom."
The two men knelt side by side, and the clergyman offered the most fervent plea to Almighty God that ever fell from his lips. As they arose, the President clasped his visitor’s hand and remarked in a satisfied sort of way: "I feel better."
(From a sermon by George Bannister, Praying For America, 7/1/2010)
An evangelist was once asked if his mother ever spanked him. He replied that she had a strap hanging in the kitchen under a sign that read, “I NEED THEE EVERY HOUR”!
James Wilson
Jim Cymbala began at the Brooklyn Tabernacle as an ill-equipped, under-educated, time-strapped preacher who led a second congregation in New Jersey. The Brooklyn church had no money to pay him, a ramshackle building, and barely enough attendance to bother with weekly meetings.
Today, the Tabernacle hosts around 6,000 spirit-filled worshipers. The difference came when Jim, in a moment of desperation, set aside his planned message and called the church to pray. The weekly prayer meeting, not the Sunday worship, became the focal point of the Brooklyn Tabernacle.
Jim’s belief that "God can’t resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need him" (p. 19) guides his work. It is Prayer, not preaching that brings Revival.
Bill Hybels tells about an interesting experience after a baptism service in their church. He writes: “I bumped into a woman in the stairwell who was crying. I thought this was a little odd, since the service was so joyful. I asked her if she was all right. She said, ‘No, I’m struggling.’ She said, ‘My mom was baptized today. I prayed for her every day for almost 20 years. The reason I’m crying is because I came this close to giving up on her. At the 5-year mark I said, “Who needs this? God isn’t listening.” At the 10-year mark I said, “Why am I wasting my breath?” At the 15-year mark I said, “This is absurd.” At the 19-year mark I said, “I’m just a fool.” But I just kept trying, kept praying. Even with weak faith I kept praying. Then she gave here life to Christ, and she was baptized today. I will never doubt the power of prayer again.”
Sometimes when we pray and pray we feel like we are experiencing the law of diminished returns — so we stop praying. We correspon...
This last week I was thinking about this priority of love and I saw an incredible example of it on Dateline NBC. It seems that two members of the same church participated in a 40 day prayer and fasting time to seek God’s will for their lives. One of the woman badly needed a kidney transplant, and at the end of the 40 day time of prayer and fasting, the other woman felt strongly that God was leading her to donate her kidney to this other woman. People couldn’t understand why, after all they weren’t family, they weren’t even friends before that, one was white the other was black. Her response was simply, "She has a need and God has given me the ability to meet that need…that’s what loving each other is all about."
A dear friend, Donna Smith, once told me, “I never say Amen I always have so much to pray about.” That’s probably good advice; when you’ve got God on the line, you wouldn’t want to hang up the phone!
LISTENING TO US
While serving as Presbyterian missionaries in Lebanon Ben and Carol Weir learned a great deal about prayer when Ben was suddenly kidnapped by Shiite Muslim extremists in 1984. He was held in solitary confinement, in cramped quarters for sixteen months. Carol wondered whether she would ever see him again. Carol wrote of her ordeal:
The months dragged on. There had been so many meetings, so much discussion without any change. I became more aware of what seemed to me to be the silence of God. What was happening to Ben during these long months? When would this nightmare end?
We ourselves had tried to stir the Reagan Administration to take new initiatives. We had made many private and personal appeals. I remembered the story in scripture of the widow who had knocked and knocked on the door of the unjust judge, the judge who cared nothing for God or man. Finally, because of her persistence, the judge responded. I felt like that widow, whose story had been told over and over for two thousand years. I was knocking on many doors in Washington. Would one door finally open for Ben’s release?
Later I was to learn from Ben that he, too, had read that same Bible story during his captivity. He had interpreted it to mean that God does not object to our repeated petitions.
Perhaps God does not speak, but remains silent to listen for something in us. Perhaps God listens for openness and receptivity on our part to the creation of a new, fresh spirit.
SOURCE: From "Hostage Bound, Hostage Free." p.164.
ALWAYS PRAY AND DON’T GIVE UP
Jesus taught that we should “always pray and not give up”
· Not because God is hard of hearing
· Not because God needs to be pestered into answering
our requests
· Not because God doesn’t want to answer us
NO… Jesus taught us always pray and not give up because, when we pray, our prayers carry weight. EVERY TIME you and I pray we unleash more and more power from the throne of God
· Are you praying for someone in your family to become a Christian?
Every prayer you pray puts more and more pressure on that person to listen to God…
· Do you pray for your friends in their daily struggles
Every prayer you pray imparts to them more and more power from God
· Do you have difficulties with someone at work
Every prayer you lift up to God’s throne brings God’s power to bear on diff...
THE QUITTERS CLUB
One of the largest organizations in America is the Quitters Club. The reason you’ve never heard of the Quitters Club is because they never meet–the members quit coming. There are no dues–the members quit paying them.
The Quitters Club is comprised of people who faced a tough job, a tough marriage, a tough sickness, or a tough failure–and they quit. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. But the going gets tough, the quitters get going...away. What we need in America and in the church are people who will exhibit good, old-fashioned “sticktoitiveness.” That’s probably not even a word, but it needs to be!
SOURCE: Dr. David O. Dykes in "P.U.S.H. – Pray Until Something Happens!" on www.sermoncentral.com.
THE STATS ON PRAYER
A Newsweek poll several years ago titled "Is God Listening?" indicated that 54% of those the magazine surveyed prayed on a daily basis - 25% said they pray to God once a day and 29% more than once a day.
87% believed that God answers their prayers at least some of the time. Even so, unanswered prayers did not deter them from praying. 85% insisted that they could accept God's failure to grant their prayers. Only 13 percent declared they have lost faith because their prayers went unanswered. 82% don't turn away from God even when their prayers go unanswered. 54% say that when God doesn't answer their prayers, it means it wasn't God's will to answer.
The things people pray for include health, safety, jobs, and even success, valid or not. 82% said they ask for health or success for a child or family member when they pray. 82% believed that God does not play favorites in answering prayers. 79% said God answers prayer for healing someone with an incurable disease. 75% asked for strength to overcome personal weakness. 73% answered that prayers for help in finding a job are answered. On the lighter side, 51% agreed that God doesn't answer prayers to win sporting events. 36% never prayed for financial or career success.
SOURCE: Victor Yap in "The Cry of My Heart" on www.sermoncentral.com. Citation: "Is God Listening?" Newsweek Magazine, 3/31/97.
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