The Power of Prayer

The Power of Prayer

"The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much" (James 5:16).

The power of prayer never can be fully understood on the earth. What wonders it has wrought cannot  even be imagined. It is one of the forces of the world which is not down in the philosopher's scheme, and whose influence on the events and results of life is not the subject of mathematical calculation. It is not estimated in the preparation of tables of probabilities. In secret, in their inner chambers, lowly ones bow, pleading with God, and immediately new elements come in to modify the flow of events.

What lost souls prayer has saved, leading them as by an invisible hand to the Cross! What wanderers prayer has reclaimed, turning them from paths of sin and shame into ways of holiness! What fainting ones prayer has cheered and upborne in hours of weakness and danger, as in quiet closets voices of love have pleaded! What tempted ones prayer has delivered from the hands of the destroyer, and made strong for victory and noble service!

Only Heaven's great final revealing can make known all the wonders wrought in this world by prayer.

Surely among all prayers that go up to God, none are dearer or more prevailing, than the intercession fo parents for their children. They are hallowed breathings of the purest, tenderest love. Such prayers, if persistent, believing and importunate - may we not say that God always answers in some way in the end?

Monica, the mother of Augustine, prays for her son. For a time he goes deeper and deeper into sin, and it seems that the mother's supplications are unheard or unavailing. But she faints not; she will not give him up; she refuses to be disheartened. For many years her son wanders far from God - but she stays at her altar, undismayed, believing still and pleading with renewed earnestness. At last her intercessions are answered in one hour when Augustine falls down at Jesus' feet in submission, and instantly turns all the wealth of his sinful life into the service of his new Master. There are thousands more who have been saved by a mother's prayers.

So it is that a parent's prayers often meet and arrest a wandering, sinning child. When he seems farthest away from God and from home, and when he is least expecting such a message, suddenly he is halted. An invisible hand is laid upon his arm; he is bound with strong chains, and borne back resistlessly to the bosom of God. It was the home prayers that did it.

A personal allusion may not be amiss. The writer, when a boy of sixteen, one day carelessly opened the door of his mother's room, not knowing that she was engaged in her devotions. There I saw her bowed in prayer, pleading so earnestly with God that she had not been disturbed by my entrance. Instantly I withdrew, awed by the solemnity which filled the place; but as I softly closed the door, I heard my own name and the fragment of a sentence of prayer which revealed to me the fact that my mother was making intercession for me. Through all the events of the crowded years since that day, that momentary glimpse of my mother on her knees in intercession for me has been a power both of restraint and inspiration in my life.

It is utterly impossible to measure the influence on my life of that one moment's glimpse of my mother on her knees. It was a revelation, and told not only of one prayer, but of like intercession every day and every night. So it was a perpetual power all the years while my mother lived. And when she went home to God, one of the elements of my sorrow was that her daily intercession would no more rise from earth to Heaven for me.

The parent may die without seeing his supplications answered, or his child converted; but his prayers do not die with him. They remain where faith has fastened them; one end around God's throne, and the other around the heart of the child - fast anchoring it to Heaven. And some day, perhaps years after the parent has gone home to God, the angels will haul in the great cable of prayer and give her her child, her heart's treasure, the answer to all her prayers!

Let every one, parents and friends, seek to bind our loved ones fast to the feet of God with chains of prayer!

~J. R. Miller~

(The End)