The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. (James 5:16)
In 1857, a lay missionary named Jeremiah Lanphier started a weekday prayer meeting for businessmen in lower New York City. He thought some men might like to pray during the hour businesses were closed, so he passed out fliers and invited many in the district to come.
At the time of the first meeting, no one came. Only a few straggled in during the hour. But the few agreed to try again the next week and the next, and within six months, more than 10,000 men were gathering for prayer.
Revivals with hundreds of conversions began to break out nearby — as many as 10,000 a week in New York City alone — and then further away. A spiritual movement had begun.1
Similar stories are told of other historical prayer movements — the Moravian movement, the revivals of Korea, and many more. In fact, history has been shaped by unknown prayer warriors even more profoundly than by the famous names and faces we put in our textbooks.
That’s because history’s actors perform their scenes on a stage that is governed by a Playwright and his stagehands. When he responds to the prayers of his people, tides turn and trends give way to the currents of his Kingdom. He is building something magnificent through the prayers and faith of Kingdom citizens.
Every great movement of God can be traced to a kneeling figure. —D. L. Moody
Because of your connection to the source of life, you have more influence in this world than you have yet imagined. You may never be recognized for that power; you may never even see its effects yourself. But people with eyes of faith know the potential and take advantage of it. Like Jeremiah Lanphier and many before and since, they believe that crying out to God for his purposes is much more powerful than trying to forge our own.
A life devoted to prayer changes the course of history and blesses a world that resists its own Creator. It puts you in a position of authority no matter how little earthly power you hold. And it makes you a partner with God in his mission to rescue, redeem, and restore the lives of many.
A Prayer for Influence
Lord, fill my heart and mouth with the words of prayers you want to answer. May your will be done and your Kingdom come in my life, family, city, nation, and world through my prayers of faith. Pour out your Spirit on me, for me, and through me. Amen.
Excerpted and adapted from The One Year Salt and Light Devotional (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2019), 288. Republished in leather-like edition as The One Year Shine Your Light Devotional.
Signs of the revival of 1857-58 were already evident when Lanphier began his prayer meetings, but he was considered instrumental in fanning the flames of that revival significantly.