How to Pray

Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. JAMES 4:2

If Torrey is remembered for one book above the rest, it is How to Pray. It is a short work, plain and practical, and it has been reprinted for more than a century. It is not in the Ochorus library, but its teaching runs through the books that are, especially the chapter on prayer in How to Succeed in the Christian Life, and through the story of his own life. Torrey was not a theorist of prayer. He had given up his salary in Minneapolis and watched his family fed in answer to it. He had led a room of hundreds in asking for revival on Saturday nights. When he wrote about prayer, he was reporting what he had proved.

Ye have not because ye ask not

Torrey began with the plainest of diagnoses. Very much of the failure in Christian living and Christian work, he wrote in How to Succeed in the Christian Life, comes from the neglect of prayer. Why do I make so little headway? Why have I so little victory over sin? Why do I accomplish so little? God answers through James: ye have not, because ye ask not.

An audience with the King

The heart of Torrey’s teaching on prayer is not technique but the sense of whom we are addressing. In How to Pray he urged that before we ask for anything we should take time to realise that we are actually in the presence of God, and speaking to Him. Much so-called prayer, he thought, is spoken into the air, with the mind on the request rather than on the One to whom it is made.

In How to Succeed in the Christian Life he put it through a picture. Prayer is an audience with the King. A subject summoned to the king never asks how much time he must spend with him, but how much time the king will give him. So the question of the Christian should not be, How much time must I spend in prayer? but, How much time may I spend in prayer, with due regard to other duties?

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. HEBREWS 4:16

That is the right place to start. Duty alone will not keep anyone praying for long. The privilege of being heard by God will.

Set times

Torrey was practical about the shape of a praying life. He commended the rule of David and of Daniel: three times a day.

Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice. PSALM 55:17

He knew that one can pray while walking the street or sitting at a desk, and he wanted Christians to learn to lift their hearts to God in the busiest moments. “It is not needful to be on your knees all the time,” he wrote, “but the heart should be on its knees all the time.” But he insisted that there must also be set times, when we go alone with God and shut the door.

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

Fighting battles before they come

His counsel for the morning is one of the most useful things he wrote. Begin the day with thanksgiving for definite mercies and prayer for definite needs. Then think ahead to the temptations the day is likely to bring, and ask God for strength to overcome them before they arrive. Many fail in the battle, Torrey observed, because they wait until the hour of battle. Others succeed because they have won the victory on their knees beforehand.

And he gave a rule for busy days that sounds absurd until it is tried: the more work a day holds, the more time must be given to prayer in preparation for it. “Prayer is the greatest time saver known to man,” he wrote. In How to Bring Men to Christ he said the same of Christian work: by praying more we will not work any less, and we will accomplish vastly more.

A clean balance sheet

At midday he recommended a few minutes alone with God to keep calm amid the anxieties of the day. And at night he urged two things.

The first is thanksgiving in detail. Review the blessings of the day and thank God for each. Nothing, he said, increases faith more than a calm review each evening of what God has done, and nothing brings larger blessings than intelligent thanks for those already given.

The second is confession. Ask God to show you anything in the day that displeased Him. Wait quietly, and listen. Confess what He shows you, frankly, as to a loving Father, and believe that He forgives it, because He says He does.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 JOHN 1:9

Torrey compared it to a bank that never closes its day until its balance is correct. Do this, he wrote, “and you can never backslide for more than twenty-four hours.” It is a characteristic sentence — confident, practical and very nearly true. Accounts left crooked for months are hard to straighten. Accounts settled every night are not.

Praying together

Torrey did not think private prayer was enough. He urged every Christian to attend the prayer meeting of his church, to guard that night from other engagements, and, if the meeting was a prayer meeting in name only, quietly to work to make it real. He also commended praying regularly with a small company of like-minded friends. His own Saturday-night meeting at the Institute was the living example. He believed that revival comes in answer to united, persevering prayer, and that the world tour which followed was the harvest of that room.

Three things to ask for

Finally, he named three things that anyone who would succeed in the Christian life must pray for especially: wisdom, strength, and the Holy Spirit.

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. ISAIAH 40:31

Torrey’s approach can feel mechanical to some readers, with its times and rules and balance sheets. He would have said that the rules are scaffolding, and that the building is fellowship with the Father. He was right to insist on both. Unstructured good intentions rarely become a life of prayer. Structures without the sense of the King’s presence rarely stay alive. Keep the structure, and remember whom you are speaking to.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask yourself honestly how much time you spent in prayer last week. Then ask how much time you would give to an audience with a king.

2. Choose set times for prayer — at least morning and evening — and keep them for a month.

3. Tomorrow morning, think ahead to the temptations of the day and pray through them before they come.

4. On your busiest day this week, deliberately give more time to prayer beforehand, and notice what happens.

5. Tonight, review the day with thanksgiving in detail, ask God to show you anything displeasing to Him, and settle the account before you sleep.

A PRAYER

Lord, teach me to pray. I confess that I have not because I ask not, and that I have looked for every explanation of my weakness but the true one.

Let me come to You as a subject summoned before the King, glad of every moment You give me.

Meet me in the morning before the battles of the day, keep my heart on its knees through the busy hours, and settle my account with You each night.

And give me wisdom, strength and Your Holy Spirit, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.