Whenever I travel to guest speak I spend time in the prayer of preparation, asking the Lord to prepare me as a messenger of His Word. At the beginning of each session I always open in a word of prayer and similarly close each session in prayer. It isn’t anything that most pastors and Christian speakers wouldn’t do, and it is entirely expected.

What is difficult to remember, and to make a habit of, is praying throughout the day. At the beginning of this series I mentioned that I too struggle to pray as often as I should. There are endless reasons (excuses?) why we do not pray. I hope to encourage you that this is a challenge for most Christ-followers. Author Cowley Fathers keeps a schedule most of us can relate to.

Cowley Fathers had just been holding Retreats for Clergy of the English Church. In the course of a discussion with author Andrew Murray he used the expression – “the distraction of business,” and it came out that he found it one of the great difficulties he and others had to deal with. Of himself, he said that by the vows of his Order he was bound to give himself especially to prayer. But he found it exceedingly difficult. Every day he had to be at four different points of the town he lived in; his predecessor had left him the charge of a number of committees where he was expected to do all the work; it was as if everything conspired to keep him from prayer.

The challenges of living affect us all, but they are never meant to be an excuse for not spending time in prayer. Hopefully this series has inspired you to pray with more purpose and with more frequency. I’ll close with these words from John Murray’s book, The Ministry of Intercession:

Let all lovers of souls, and all workers in the service of the gospel, take courage. Time spent in prayer will yield more than that given to work. Prayer alone gives work its worth and its success. Prayer opens the way for God Himself to do His work in us and through us. Let your chief work, as God’s messengers, be intercession: in it we secure the presence and power of God to go with us.