Prayer Saves Time

By Dave Earley

How many times in the last month have you felt like you were too busy? How many times have you felt overwhelmed? My study of high-impact leaders has revealed that they accomplished so much because they understood a forgotten secret of high-impact spiritual leadership--prayer saves time.

Too Busy Not to Pray

Jesus bit off life in big chunks, and often ministered at an intense pace. The demands on His time and energy were immense. His inner strength was repeated tapped by slow-to-grasp-the-truth disciples, vast crowds, desperately needy sick and demonized people, and fierce opposition. Everything He did pressed upstream from the overly organized status quo of the Jews and their religion.

How did He survive it, let alone thrive through it and rise triumphantly above it all?

Jesus viewed prayer as the secret source of spiritual strength and the reservoir of real refreshment. Even when He was very busy, He was never too busy to pray.

I have learned that when I think I am too busy to pray, I really am too busy not to pray.

The leader of a huge church in South Korea in writing on the importance of leaders taking the time to pray has written,

"One of the greatest lies of Satan is that we don’t have enough time to pray. However, all of us have enough time to sleep, eat, and breathe. As soon as we realize that prayer is as important as sleeping, eating, and breathing, we will be amazed at how much time we have to pray." 1

___________________________________________________

If you have not yet signed up to be notified of each new blog entry, and would like to be,

SIGN UP HERE
____________________________________________________

George Muller was one of the most amazing spiritual leaders the world has ever seen. He was a gifted philanthropist and evangelist. He circulated 111 million tracts and pamphlets, 1.4 million New Testaments and 275,000 Bibles in different languages, with nearly as many smaller portions of Scripture. He supported 189 missionaries. After he turned 70, he preached the gospel in 42 nations to approximately 3 million people. During his life, he cared for over 10,024 orphans, provided education for 123,000 students and received $7,500,000 of unsolicited funds from human sources by faith and prayer alone.

As a young minister when he was first starting his orphanages, he went through a very busy season. In fact, he often found himself too busy to pray as he ought. He biographer writes, "After learning the lesson of being busy in the work of the Lord, too busy in fact to pray, he told his brethren that four hours of work after an hour of prayer would accomplish more than five hours without prayer. This rule henceforth he faithfully kept." 2

Charles Spurgeon, the incredibly successful and busy English pastor agreed. When preaching on the subject of prayer he observed,

"Sometimes we think we are too busy to pray. That also is a great mistake, for praying is a saving of time . . . God can multiply our ability to make use of time. If we give the Lord His due, we shall have enough for all necessary purposes. In this matter seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Your other engagements will run smoothly if you do not forget your engagement with God." 3

Notes:

1. Paul Y. Cho, Prayer: Key to Revival, (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1984), p. 18

2. Basil Miller, George Muller: Man of Faith and Miracles, Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Fellowship, 1941, p. 49

3. Charles Spurgeon, “Pray Without Ceasing,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, A Sermon Delivered on Lord's Day Morning, March 10th, 1872.

About the Pastor:

This article is adapted from Dave Earley's book Prayer: The timeless Secret of High-Impact Leader (AMG 2008).