Prayer: The Timeless Secret of High-Impact LeadersSample

Pray without Ceasing—Paul and Spurgeon

Paul was one of the greatest spiritual leaders to ever walk the earth. From planting churches to writing what is now a large chunk of our New Testament, he made a difference. His success, in part, certainly flowed from his prayer life. His letters are sprinkled with examples and teachings about prayer. One of the commands he gave that most of us know is the miniature, yet mighty, command “Pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). These two words are easy to say but much harder to apply.

Charles Spurgeon, the successful English pastor who preached to crowds of ten thousand every Sunday, was one leader who both understood and mastered Paul’s injunction. When he preached on this passage, he explained:

While your hands are busy with the world, let your hearts still talk with God; not in twenty sentences at a time, for such an interval might be inconsistent with your calling, but in broken sentences and interjections . . . or, without words we may pray in the upward glancing of the eye or the sigh of the heart. He who prays without ceasing uses many little darts and hand grenades of godly desire, which he casts forth at every available interval. Sometimes he will blow the furnace of his desires to a great heat in regular prayer, and as a consequence at other times, the sparks will continue to rise up to heaven in the form of brief words, and looks, and desires.

Spurgeon’s biographer observed, “If we may venture to observe the inner life of this man so greatly honored of God in the world, we shall not find Spurgeon on his knees; and that not because he did not pray but because he prayed incessantly.” Spurgeon’s simple explanation was “I always feel it well just to put a few words of prayer between everything I do.”

One of his friends recounted walking down a road near a wood when Spurgeon casually paused and invited the friend to join him on his knees. There Spurgeon “lifted his soul to God in the most loving and yet, reverent prayer . . . It was something that belonged as much to the habit of his mind as breathing did to the habit of his body.”