Wednesday, October 17, 2012

R.A. Torrey

 R. A. Torrey

Do What God Asks

By Patricia Raybon
“Do what God asks.”I swallowed hard as I read the words. This was the secret? The path? The key to power in prayer? But I wanted more (or maybe less) from a prayer scholar when I came thirsty to the teachings of evangelist R. A. Torrey.
In fact, I came broken by life—a marriage in the dumps, a child in the wilderness, a beloved aging mother close to death, and my own soul in spiritual decline. So when a new friend gave me a copy of Torrey’s classic prayer manual, The Power of Prayer, I devoured it whole.
And it didn’t go down easy. Torrey taught with love, but his urgings hit tough: that we neglect to pray—then wonder why God doesn’t answer. That we doubt God, forgetting that He operates “the Bank of heaven, a bank whose capital is absolutely unlimited.” And that we fail in faith when we lack the zeal, guts, and will to “fight the thing through on [our] knees.”
So how to toughen our shoulders and fight? And then to seize a victory?Do what God asks. Reading that in Torrey’s prayer primer, I shuddered at the sheer practical, quiet power of it. Know God’s Word. Then live it.Then, said Torrey, citing from 1 John 3:22, “we, too, can say, ‘whatsoever I ask I get.’”
Did my mountains move as I sought to obey God? Without a doubt. But even more, my open ears could finally hear His answers.

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