Fellowship in Prayer

This interference with praying will also be the common experience of those who are placed together in the Lord’s work; hence it is not at all an uncommon thing to find that missionaries, as well as home workers, often fail to meet for prayer through some trifling thing. Oh, these devil pinpricks! How tired one gets of them all when one knows that the devil is the cause of them!

Do pray and determine that the enemy be exposed in this matter and that those who need to pray together will want to and be able to. Many a work of God seems to lack vitality for want of this fellowship in prayer, and while it is certain that God can work mightily through the prayers of even one soul, there must be some significance in “two agreeing,” or the Lord would not have stressed it (Matthew 18:19). The truth is that two agreeing on earth in prayer can set in motion forces that were before motionless. Many a man has had to wait for his wife to join him in prayer before God did certain things; and conversely, in other situations the wife has had to wait for the husband. It is not always so, but one has often noticed things change for the better when a situation has been tackled by two or more who were formerly praying alone.

I do not want here to enter upon a dissertation on prayer, but I firmly believe that no kind of effective praying is left unopposed, and thousands could testify that all sorts of unwelcome things are constantly happening to make real prayer impossible. It is simply that the devil ceaselessly conspires to slay the spirit and atmosphere of prayer, and until this is recognized and he is resisted, many problems in relation to praying will remain unsolved.