Purpose in Prayer

It is E. M. Bounds's argument that prayer is work — deliberate, purposeful labour, not a passive mood. Across thirteen chapters, each opening with the words of a praying man such as Gilmour of Mongolia, Brother Lawrence, or Fletcher of Madeley, Bounds presses one point: that the feeling that a man at prayer is doing nothing is a lie, and that intercession is among the hardest and most important work a Christian can do.

That prayer must be pursued with purpose — with intention, resolve, and effort — rather than left to chance or feeling. Bounds contends that great praying, like great work, is deliberate; it is planned for, given time, and pressed with the whole will. The Christians who accomplish much in prayer are those who set themselves to it on purpose, not those who pray only when moved.

Because he wants to overturn the notion that the person at prayer is idle. Prayer, he argues, is real labour — demanding, costly, and effective — the hidden toil behind all fruitful Christian service. To treat it as easy or optional is to misunderstand it; Bounds sets it among the most strenuous and consequential things a believer ever does.

Because Bounds teaches by example as much as by argument. By prefacing each chapter with the words or witness of a noted man of prayer — a missionary, a mystic, a saint — he grounds his case in lives that proved it, showing that those who accomplished most for God were those who gave themselves to purposeful prayer.

That purposeful prayer is persevering prayer — that a settled purpose keeps a believer praying through delay, dryness, and discouragement until the answer comes. Bounds ties purpose to importunity: the one who has resolved to pray does not give up easily, but presses on with intention, and it is such steady, deliberate praying that prevails.

An American Methodist pastor who rose before dawn to pray and devoted his pen to the subject for the rest of his life. His prayer books, largely published posthumously, are among the most influential ever written on intercession, and Purpose in Prayer is his sustained call to take prayer up as serious, deliberate work.

For the Christian whose prayer life is fitful and unplanned, and who suspects that little comes of it. Bounds writes to summon such a reader to purpose — to make prayer a settled aim rather than an occasional impulse — and to convince them that this hidden work is worth the whole of their resolve.

At the beginning and through the chapters in order, letting the witnesses that open each one reinforce the argument. Short and bracing, the book is meant to move the reader from vague intention to settled purpose, so it is best read as a summons to act — and then acted on in a deliberate life of prayer.