Prevailing Prayer

It is D. L. Moody's study of what makes prayer prevail with God. Moody walks through the great elements of prevailing prayer one by one — adoration, confession, restitution, thanksgiving, forgiveness, unity, faith, petition, and submission — illustrating each from the prayers of the Bible and from striking anecdotes, to show what kind of praying God answers.

Dwight Lyman Moody was one of the most influential American evangelists of the nineteenth century, a plain-spoken former shoe salesman who led great campaigns in America and Britain. A man of practical faith, he wrote this book to help ordinary Christians pray in the way that Scripture shows God honours.

He treats them in turn: adoration, confession, restitution, thanksgiving, forgiveness, unity, faith, petition, and submission. Rather than offering a technique, Moody shows that prevailing prayer gathers up these ingredients — a right approach to God, a clean heart, a forgiving spirit, real faith, and a will bowed to God's — as the kind of praying Scripture rewards.

Because he believed prayer is hindered by unconfessed and un-righted wrongs. Where a believer has cheated or injured another, Moody teaches that making it right clears the way for prayer to prevail. It is a mark of his practical, conscience-searching approach: prevailing prayer is tied to honest dealing, not only to fervent asking.

Constantly — he illustrates each element with the prayers of Scripture, from the great intercessors and their answered petitions. Moody teaches prayer chiefly by example, holding up the men and women of the Bible who prevailed with God, so that the reader learns not an abstract theory but a pattern drawn from those who actually prayed and were heard.

That prevailing prayer ends in a will bowed to God's, praying as Christ did, 'not my will, but thine.' Far from weakening prayer, Moody teaches that submission perfects it — that the prayer God answers is one offered in faith yet surrendered to his wisdom, trusting him to give what is best rather than merely what is asked.

For any Christian who wants to learn to pray with power and to understand why some prayer prevails and some does not. Written plainly and full of illustration, it serves both the beginner learning to pray and the believer wanting to deepen a prayer life, pressing all toward the kind of praying that lays hold of God.

At the beginning and through the elements in order, since together they build Moody's picture of prevailing prayer. The chapters are short and richly illustrated, meant to be read and put into practice, so that the reader not only understands what prevailing prayer is but begins to pray that way.