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“If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 John 5:14, NKJV).
In an old book titled Prevailing Prayer, author Eli Wigle described John Wesley’s prayer life this way: “As a matter of habit and rule, John Wesley’s ordinary private praying consumed two hours a day.
At times he would gather his company and pray all night, or till the power of God came down. Nothing was considered too great or too small to take to the Lord.
Seized with pain in the midst of preaching, so that he could not speak, “I know my remedy,” he said, and immediately kneeled down.
In a moment the pain was gone…Being seized with a pain, fever and cough, so that he could scarcely speak, “I called on Jesus aloud to increase my faith.
While I was speaking my pain vanished away, my fever left me, and my bodily strength returned.”…Wesley…stirred the world with the fire of his zeal, because he had stirred Heaven by the fire of his prayers. His pleas had access to men’s consciences, because they had access to God.”
Why did Wesley commit so much time to prayer? First, because he saw prayer as a cleansing and correcting force. In one of his prayers he said, “Oh, fill up all that is wanting, reform whatever is amiss in me, perfect the thing that concerns me.”
Second, because he knew that God’s will is the only plan and purpose that God is committed to. “Now this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 John 5:14, NKJV).
By Alfred Nyamekye
