Magnificent Prayer #26
Magnificent Prayer #26
Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
James 5:17
When we read that Elijah was a man subject to the same passions as ourselves, we’re apt to suppose that those passions were the driving force of his life. But Scripture shows that the results of his wonderful career were achieved, not by his passion, but by his prayer!
Elijah, though capable of the same vehement earnestness with which we’re all endowed, refused to accomplish his life-work by using human passion, but instead determined to obtain the results he desired through prayer. He was a man of like passions with ourselves, but he prayed earnestly. He turned his passion into prayer.
F. B. MEYER
Pray About It: When we read the stories in the Bible, we seem amazed at the wonderful men and women God used. But then when we read that they were just like we are, we’re even more amazed. Can it be true that Elijah was like us? If so, then God’s message is that the wonders that Elijah and others like him in the Bible accomplished can also be accomplished by us—but only in prayer, not in the sweat of our natural energy or passion.
Never underestimate your prayers before God. Why? Because the secret isn’t in the vessel praying, nor in his or her passion, but in the God to whom we pray. We don’t need extraordinary faith. Ordinary faith in an extraordinary God will move mountains.
How can the church pray small prayers when she comes before the God of such abundance? She cannot make little requests before such a great God. To come before the great God is to expect great things to happen.
WATCHMAN NEE
From the book
