For about two years now I have been reading a lot of books about prayer. My goal isn't really to learn HOW to pray so much....it's pretty simple really, but to be inspired to pray bigger and more often. It has been so amazing. I've read a lot of great book I could recommend...and I would be happy to if you are interested..but I want to share with you some of what I learned from an amazing books, and an amazing women named Evelyn Christenson in her book "A Time to Pray God's Way."
“History reveals a very important connection between repentance praying and revivals. Repentance praying prior to and during revivals has been one of God’s most powerful means of reaching unbelievers. One of the marvelous examples of this happened in 1947 in the Hebrides Islands when a handful of ordinary men were brokenhearted about the spiritual condition in their country. Feeling that the only hope was seeking God’s help through prayer, they worked all day, spent the evening with their families, and then gathered in a barn—to pray. For two years they kept up this incredible schedule, begging God to rescue their islands. They always based their praying on Scripture, and on night they chose Psalm 24, including the following:
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His Holy Place? He that has clean hands, and a pure heart; who has not lifted up his soul to another, nor sworn deceitfully.”
Devastated, they suddenly realized the truth. ‘Is it possible,’ they asked, ‘that for two long years we’ve been praying night and day, sacrificially, for the Lord to move on our islands—and yet our hands are not clean? Is it possible our hearts are not pure? Is it possible that our souls have been lifted up to vanity and that we have sworn deceitfully?”’ Immediately the Lord convinced them that all these things they feared were true. That night, they prayed the words from James 5:16.
Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective
As they left the barn that night, they saw two town drunks on their knees—not drunk but praying, asking God to forgive them. They also saw the lights on in the homes in the valley below at 1:30am. Realizing their separation from God, dozens of families had gotten up in consternation to try to find someone awake with whom they could talk. They then invited the great Scottish evangelist Duncan Campbell to come to preach to them, and their great revival broke out—born in a barn when men, already praying sacrificially, confessed their own sins.
One of the world’s greatest experts on revival, Dr. J. Edwin Orr spent a lifetime studying the reasons for and results of revivals through the centuries and around the world. He discovered that all revivals have been produced by two things: (1) the praying of extraordinary prayers and (2) one to eleven Christians getting completely right with God. God alone produces revivals, but He always has sent it in response to these two things—extraordinary prayer plus repenting pray-ers. The first stage of revival during or after the praying is always the convicting of sin!
So what is revival?
Revival is not asking for blessings, and it is also not evangelism. These words are not synonymous. After all, no one can be revived unless he or she was alive in the first place. Revival is for the child of God; rebirth, not revival, is for the unsaved. Revival is only for those who already have life through knowing Jesus as Savior and Lord—but who are desperately in need of a fresh touch of God. That touch comes in revival through prayer and repentance.
The third stage of revival involves unbelievers’ repenting and believing as they are convicted and come to Jesus for salvation but is always preceded by Christians doing the initial deep praying for revival—including repenting of their own sins.”
-Evelyn Christenson
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