A father took his small son with him to town one day to run some errands. When lunchtime arrived, the two of them went to a familiar diner for a sandwich. The father sat down on one of the stools at the counter and lifted the boy up to the seat beside him. They ordered lunch, and when the waiter brought the food, the father said, “Son, we’ll just have a silent prayer today.”

Dad got through praying first and waited for the boy to finish his prayer, but he just sat with his head bowed for an unusually long time. When he finally looked up, his father asked him, “What in the world were you praying about all that time?” With the innocence and honesty of a child, he replied, “How do I know? It was a silent prayer.”

So much of our praying is so silent that we really never pray at all, that much of our public prayers are more sermons for the saints than supplications to the Savior.

Almost all of us have someone near to us who does not know Christ. How are we to pray for them? Will our prayers do any good? What are we to pray for them? Prayer is our greatest resource in bringing people to Christ.

If we are to be an evangelistic church, we must be a prayerful church. Oh to be a church whose prayers shake the foundations of hell. Let’s take a few days to examine this essential of the Christian life. Do you pray? Do you know how to pray?