Why Satan Mocks

In her book Living Faith, Helen Roseveare relates that she and fellow missionaries agreed to have a weekly prayer meeting. More pressing busyness repeatedly crowded it out. There were ungraded papers, unanswered letters, other committees, and a quiet desire for one evening for their own affairs. Always there seemed a valid excuse for the prayer meeting to wait until next week.

“And so in 1958 we lost Bakiogomu; in 1962, Bumukumu. . . .” On and on she listed promising young graduates who had fallen to the pressures of the enemy. She wondered if those losses would have occurred if she and her fellow missionaries had invested more time in prayer. They had thought they had saved time by attending to their own affairs.

Samuel Chadwick said, “The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”

Dear Jesus, help me to see the importance of consistent prayer.