Short extract from Chapter 5

From the Secret Place of Prayer
The Power of Personal Consecration
 
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
Matthew 6:6
 

I once heard a preacher say that our most recent answered prayers are a testimony of God’s near presence. If we aren’t having daily answered prayers, then we probably aren’t daily in His presence. I don’t know that this is sound theology, but with this thought in mind, let me share about “Praying Hyde.”
John Hyde, also known as “Praying Hyde,” was a missionary to India in the early 1900s and had such an all-consuming burden for the salvation of souls that he would not stop praying until God brought another soul, and then another, to the truth. At one time, he was convinced that he needed to pray for at least one soul a day for the following year. It was an extraordinary prayer challenge, and some even mocked his goal… and God answered.
It certainly wasn’t easy praying through those many long nights and fasting in agony through those long days, but he persisted and God gave him the victory. At the end of that year, more than four hundred souls had come to know Christ directly through his efforts.
The next year, Hyde pleaded with the Lord for greater blessings. This time he asked for two souls a day! God answered again, and over eight hundred souls were converted! Still not satisfied, his burden and cry for souls growing heavier and heavier, and knowing that Christ deserves the lives of those He died to save, the following year he again laid hold on God with a holy desperation, pleading for four souls a day. It took weeks of praying, weeks of weeping, weeks of wrestling with the Lord before he once again had the confident assurance that God had heard and would answer. And God did!
I share the story of “Praying Hyde” because his testimony has challenged me in my own prayer life as no other. I may not be winning my thousands to Christ, as many evangelists and other leaders are. And I certainly don’t feel I’m at the point where I could confidently ask God for one soul a day. However, awhile back God did impress me that I could ask for at least one answered prayer a day. And since I started journaling and keeping accurate records almost two years ago now, there has not been one day when I haven’t received at least one answer to prayer. Some days I receive four or five answers, and one day this past week I received seven!
From watching God restore broken relationships on the brink of divorce, to seeing Him bring specific lost souls into the truth, to experiencing spiritual and physical healing, to seeing impossible obstacles before me vanish, to having specific needs met when the only One who knew my need was God, to having free gravel dumped on my driveway (yes, God even cares about gravel!), to receiving wisdom and amazingly opening doors in ministry—the answers just go on and on and on. Obviously, I don’t have space to share about all the miracles here and now. But as I’ve seen God answering my prayers every day, sometimes in big ways, and sometimes in small ways, but always in a significant way, my faith has been growing and growing.
I believe with all my hear that God is just longing for us to expect more, pray for more, and ask for more in faith. And it all starts with personal consecration in that private prayer closet. We can’t dream too big if we are living and working according to His will. It’s not about our talents or capabilities anyway. It’s about His! It is for the accomplishments of His purposes that we pray!
God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He hasn’t changed. He is just waiting to prove Himself strong on our behalf. But He doesn’t open heaven’s storehouse of blessings on the careless or the hasty comers and goers. He’s looking for the sincere of heart; He’s looking for personal consecration and for those who are looking upward and longing for more of Him. He’s looking for those who are seeking to know Him personally.
God tells us, as if trying to help us understand the unlimited possibilities before us, “Call upon Me and I will answer you and show you mighty things which you know not. I can do so much more than you’ve even thought or dreamed! The sky is not the limit in My realm! But you need to ask! You need to believe! And most of all, you need to seek Me!” (Paraphrase of Jeremiah 33:3; Isaiah 55:8, 9; Matthew 7:7, 8; James 4:2; Matthew 6:33). Will we have faith in His promises? Will we seek for more of Him? Well we stand upon His Word no matter the storms that surround us?