Effectual Prayer

Nothing seemed all that different as we entered the auditorium for chapel. It was my first year of Bible College, the first semester. We sang a song, and a thousand Bible college students can sing well. Then our president called on one of the professors to lead an opening prayer.

Dr. Peter Connolly, an elderly man who became a Christian in Ireland when just a young man, stepped to the microphone. I'd heard him pray at the beginning of class, but this seemed different. He was passionate, eloquent but subdued. His prayer continued with a growing sense of awe spreading through the auditorium. No one moved. No one coughed. All of us sensed we were experiencing something special. I don't know if any of us had ever heard anyone pray like he prayed that morning.

No one remembered whether or not the prayer was long. No one remembered specific things for which Dr. Connolly prayed. When we talked about it later . . . even years later . . . we remembered the passionate nature of the prayer. We remembered that we were almost breathless when he finished praying. It seemed that he brought us directly into the presence of Jesus.

When he finished praying our president came back to the microphone and dismissed chapel. We wouldn't hear a speaker. The student scheduled to sing wouldn't sing. Our hearts were stirred, fed and challenged with one prayer from on old man who had walked with Jesus for years. Even more, we clearly had been in the presence of Jesus that morning. One thousand college students and the faculty and staff left that chapel service without saying a word. I didn't know that many people could be that quiet.

As I think about that morning (It's been more than forty years ago), I remember a man who talked to God that morning as though they were face to face. He modeled intimacy with God driven by humility and gratitude.
I hope some day to pray like Peter Connolly. I hope some day you'll pray like Peter Connolly. It will only happen for all of us if we choose to spend time with the triune God.

The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. (James 5:16b). John Strain - First Baptist of Toms River

Great Quote: God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends. Jeremy Taylor