Principles for Leading Others to Pray
Let me give you some of the principles behind all of this. The first principle is that you will never lead men to pray unless you are a man of prayer. You cannot share what you have not experienced. Unless you have a time with God that is consistent and regular, and unless that time is a passion in your life, you will not be able to lead people to such passion. You have to be a man of prayer. This has to be deep in your soul.
A second principle is the importance of a place of prayer. It is significant that Jesus teaches, "And when you pray go into your closet, or into your room, and shut the door." (See Matt. 6:6). You need to have a secret place of prayer. I travel a great deal so I understand that sometimes there are circumstances and situations that make it difficult to have a certain place for prayer. When I am at home, however, I have a routine. In the morning after I get cleaned up and have my breakfast, I make my way to a clump of trees near where I live to be alone with God. I sit on a big old rock there, open my Bible and read the Word of God, and then I walk around in that clump of trees and pour my heart out to God. My wife can sit in our house in her rocking chair and open her Bible. That’s just not me. I need to be outside. It is important to have a time and a place where you can go to get away from everybody and everything and just meet with God.
It is very easy for this time to be rushed, and people often ask me how much time does one need to spend alone with God. For every person it is different, but you need to spend enough time that you know you’ve been with God and He’s been with you. John, one of the original twenty men, would get up at 4:30 to be able to have his time alone with God before he went to work. During his quiet time, God burdened him for his boss, so we started praying for him. One Sunday evening after our service, his boss, a colonel, introduced himself to me and said, "I’m fifty years old and I don’t have any purpose in life." We talked and he gave his heart to Jesus. John taught him how to have a quiet time with God, and he started meeting with God. He became a general, and after he retired from the military, he went to seminary and today is a pastor.
