1
The Privilege of Prayer
Prayer is as vital to the spiritual life as breathing
is to the physical. The person who refuses to
breathe, brings upon himself the sentence of physi-
cal death. Likewise the person who neglects or re-
fuses to pray, cuts off the source of spiritual life and
the means of maintaining it.
Prayer is the very soul of the Christian religion.
Without it, profession becomes a hollow and lifeless
form and religious experience a valley of dry bones.
Prayer is the most holy exercise of the soul. It takes
the worshiper into the holy of holies of devotion, the
inner sanctuary of spiritual experience. It is the se-
cret of the beauty of holiness.
“He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men
ought always to pray, and not to faint.” Luke 18:1. The
parable was of the unjust judge who finally granted the
request of the widow, not on the basis of justice, but be-
cause of her persistency. The word “parable” comes from
the Latin parabola, which means a comparison or illustra-
tion. It is a thing figuratively expressed—a figure or si-
militude.
The purpose of this parable was to teach Christians not
to lose heart in prayer and give up too soon. Faintness is a
condition of weakness or weariness. It symbolizes the loss
of hope and faith. It describes one who becomes discour-
aged and gives up. It is the opposite of hope, faith, cour-
age, and persistency.
The widow of the parable repeatedly came and en-
treated the judge. She refused to take “No” for an answer
because she knew that her cause was just and that it was
the duty of the judge to grant her request. The judge is
called “unjust” by way of contrast with a just God. If an
unjust judge will finally render justice and grant the per-
sistent request of a suppliant, surely “the God of Justice”
will hear and answer the requests of His people when they
are in harmony with His will.
Prayer does not change God, nor does it change His
mind. He already knows our needs and longs to supply
them. Prayer changes us. It changes our attitude and our
character. It prepares us to receive and appreciate what
God finally gives us.
Parents ruin their children when they immediately
grant every request. Such children become greedy, selfish,
self-centered, proud, and unappreciative. They are often
ruined for this life and for all eternity. The best children,
and later the most useful and unselfish men and women,
are those whose requests were often denied or at least de-
layed until their characters were developed. By years of
self-denial and discipline in the school of experience, they
learned to be unselfish and appreciative. Would our heav-
enly Father be less wise than earthly parents in training His
children?
In Revelation 14:12, we are told that our Lord will be
welcomed at His return by a people who have “the faith of
Jesus.” The kind of faith that Jesus had will be obtained in
the same way He obtained His faith—“by prayer and fast-
ing.” (See Matthew 17:19-21.) Only praying people de-
velop faith, and only those who enter into the prayer life of
Jesus can have the same kind of miracle-working faith He
had. Such a people will be on earth when He returns. A
people of faith who are persistent in prayer will proclaim a
message that will lighten the earth with its glory.
Prayer is the greatest privilege of Christians in this sin-
ful and rebellious world. It is the breath of spiritual life to
the soul. It is to the spiritual life what breathing is to the
physical. Its neglect leads to certain spiritual death. Prayer
is communion, or conversation, with God. It is the golden
cord that connects man with God, earth with heaven. It is
the power that moves the arm that moves the world. Prayer
can change the most hopeless, discouraging outlook. It
makes the future as bright as the promises of God.
Someone has said that “prayer is the golden river at
whose brink some die of thirst while others kneel and
drink.”
[Abridged from Prevailing Prayer, by Taylor Bunch,
published by Review and Herald Publishing Association,
Copyright 1946.]
Vol. 1, No. 2
“And ye are complete in him.” Col. 2:10
Nov. / Dec. 1998
Woman to Woman
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