Never would I have thought a life-changing purchase would only cost a quarter. I'm always looking for bargain books, but I didn't think the one that would change my life would be hidden at a garage sale.
It was the biography of George Müeller, and it wasn't so much the man's story that changed my life as it was the legacy of those who had formerly owned the book.
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God put the book into my hands two days before I attended a prayer summit. I was desperate. I was just burned out and frustrated as I could be. Our church wasn't growing, I couldn't seem to manage all of our ministry activities, and I could just feel that something was missing.
I didn't read much of the book prior to the summit, but I did notice that someone had put a 5×7 card in the back with three columns. Each column had four names, names like missionaries David Brainerd and Rees Howells and great preachers such as Finney and Spurgeon. There were 12 names in all, and behind every one was the inscription "three hours."
On the bus ride home from the prayer summit, I pulled the book out and contemplated the inscription behind each of those names.
I knew I didn't want to go back to my church and have everything stay the same. So I wrote out seven goals and taped them in my Bible, promising myself to read them every day. The very first one I wrote down was that I was going to pray three hours a day. I'd been praying five minutes a day up until that point, so this was a radical shift for me.
But I did it. In the ten years since I made that commitment, my life has been changed. My church has been changed. And now pastors across the country are asking me to share how it happened.
Simply put, we made the commitment to pray.
"But," I can hear you say, "it's not that simple."
Motivated, but not by guilt
As a pastor I knew how important prayer was, but I didn't commit to it like I should have. I didn't even realize how much prayer I was missing until I bought that 25-cent book.
The Devil knows prayer is the only thing he has no defense against. I think he works overtime in trying to get us not to pray. He creates excuses for us, and they're always the same three:
"I'm too busy."
"I can do it tomorrow."
"I really don't need to pray for an hour (much less three)."
I hear the same reasons given wherever I go. I don't think there's anything that the Devil's going to resist and fight against as much as prayer.
What do we do? It is a major battle to get people to give much time to prayer. The answer can be found in 2 Corinthians 9:6: "Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously."
Prayer is the same. You sow little and reap little. Sow much, you reap much. And the missing ingredient in most churches and most Christian's lives is the volume of prayer.
The more I study prayer, the more obvious it becomes that volume is something God expects. Jesus prayed all night. The leaders of the early church prayed 10 days straight before the church began. The admonition is clearly to be devoted to prayer.
Prayer is the well from which other things emerge. The effect of prayer is a force that makes a difference environmentally in our country, in our society, and in the presence of God. It's not a "Please, pass the potatoes" kind of thing, but rather an ongoing discipline that makes a difference in the environment. Prayer changes attitudes. The very presence of God through prayer in a person's life changes their responsiveness to the gospel.
Prayer even changes the level of crime in a community. All of these things are going to be influenced by the volume of prayer.
When I returned home from that prayer summit and stepped off the bus, I knew it was time to make a change, time to drastically change my prayer life.
The next Sunday I stood before the congregation and confessed my prayerlessness. I said, "I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to be at the church to pray every morning at six and every evening at nine." All I wanted was just one other person to pray with me. Our corporate commitment to prayer started with two meetings a day, and it's just grown from there.
And the effects of prayer are evident: Unity, for instance, has grown substantially in our church as prayer has increased. The quality of love in our church has increased. So has the interest in evangelism, and boldness in our witnessing. None of these are things we specifically pray about all the time, but they are results of the increased prayer life of our church. And any one of those is worth the time we give in prayer.
It's been interesting to see God work these past 10 years. The church has grown from 200 members to 1,800, and I know it's because of the increased emphasis on prayer.
Steadily increased heat
Maintaining the prayer mission of our church is like boiling water. You have to keep the heat on all the time. Once you take the heat off, it stops. A lot of persuading has to take place. And the leadership must be committed in building a church of prayer.
I've found the best way to develop a good prayer life is through progression. Start out with one 15-minute block of time once a week. Get that down so you're faithful to it, then add a 15 minute-block on another day, and another until you get it down. Once each day of your week has a 15-minute block, add five minutes on one of those days, then another. It may take six months or a year to build up to an hour a day, but that's all right.
What's important is progression toward the goal. When a person begins to pray for one hour in a setting, they begin to sense God's presence in ways they've never experienced before.
At least two of the hours I spend in prayer each day are with groups at church. Our corporate prayer has become dynamic and powerful. But my personal prayer time has grown also. I often pray aloud while walking. This helps me keep focused, as does an extensive stack of cards I use to prompt prayers for church members, missionaries, and nations.
Pressure off
What you sow is what you reap, and that's certainly true in prayer. It may cost some time, but what we get back in blessing, energy, vision, and insight more than makes up for the sacrifice of time. Anything you give away in prayer, I've found, you get back in greater blessings.
Praying now three hours a day, I feel considerably less time pressure than I used to when I prayed five minutes a day. I don't feel so weighed down in ministry, and that's probably the greatest blessing.
Most pastors say they are tired. God tells how to avoid being weary in Philippians 4:6, which says, "Be anxious for nothing but in everything with prayer and thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God which passes all comprehension will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."
And all because of a book I bought for a quarter. A book that had a card, and a card that noted "three hours, three hours, three hours."
It worked for those guys, and it's working for me.
Dee Duke is pastor of Jefferson Baptist Church in Jefferson, Oregon.
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