“Pray without ceasing.” So how are we doing with Paul’s admonition? In Wendell Berry’s book about a small town barber, Jayber Crow, the title character goes to Bible college for a while and then stops praying. He wonders aloud to one of his professors what the point of praying is. Since it has no point, he stops. Have you also stopped praying?
When he went to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem, Nehemiah faced extraordinary opposition. His antidote to the opposition was unceasing prayer. True he posted guards to protect his workers. True, he set the pattern to guide his helpers to work hard. But all along in these chapters, we find Nehemiah in unceasing prayer. He brought the mission, his own work, and his opponents into the presence of the only One who could change the situation. Nehemiah worked hard, but he depended on God.
Later in the novel, Jayber Crow comes to a moment of repentance. Then he begins to pray again. He picks up where he left off and finds that God has been there all along. Someday, I suppose, we will have to cease almost all the activities which occupy our time. But we must not stop praying.
Missionary Hudson Taylor’s son wrote about his father, “For forty years, the sun never rose on China without my father on his knees praying for the people there to know Christ.” Today there is a spiritual revival taking place in China. I can’t help but wonder if this renewal is the result of all those prayers Taylor prayed. Pray. Don’t stop. The world is upheld by it. Tennyson said, “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.“
