Thoughts on prayer

by Chris Mann

Prayer is not foreign for many, as people of all different cultures pray. However, Christian prayer is different. The Bible says there is distance, a chasm, between us and God, our creator. Yet now through Jesus, only through trusting Him, we have access. We are brought into the family and can now draw near to God, to His throne of grace, ‘with confidence’ (Hebrews 4:16). I love how Tim Keller, a late Christian minster, described prayer. ‘The only person who dares wake up a king at 3:00 am for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access.’ Prayer is an incredibly precious gift for the Christian. The Christian hears their Heavenly Father speak to them through the Bible; which means prayer is our response.  It is us speaking back to God, enjoying Him, and also relying on His strength, not our own. 

You see this pictured in the book of Acts, the epic story and description of the early church. In Acts you read of God moving in power, people planting churches, and lives being transformed as people hear about the good news of Jesus. Yet at the start of the book, and really all the way through, the early church would have appeared weak. Jesus called them to be His witnesses, to tell others that He is alive and that hope is found in Him. It was and is an enormous task, so what did they do? Before they preached and planted churches, they leaned hard upon their maker, the one who is strong. They asked God to do what they can’t. They marched forward on their knees. They prayed.

Charles Spurgeon was a 19th Century Baptist minister in London. He was a man who loved the Lord, loved to tell others about Him, and he saw many meet Jesus and find life in Him. One day, it is said that a group of young ministers came to visit his church. He gave them a tour showing them the interiors of the great church building. Then he looked at them and said, ‘Would you like to see our boiler room?’ These guests were not too keen on this as back then boiler rooms weren’t very exciting places to visit. In the 19th century, steam was the power source, so the boiler room would have been hot, dirty, and probably down in the basement somewhere. However, they did go, and perhaps to their surprise, what they found was a group of people praying.

Spurgeon then said, ‘This is my boiler room.’ 

This story is why I’ve been calling our weekly prayer meetings our ‘engine room.’

Because we are weak, but He is strong.