Wrestlers With God

 The following is from Samuel Logan Brengle's  book Heart Talks on Holiness.  Logan was an officer with the Salvation Army.

"In these days of organization, of societies, leagues, committees, multiplied  and  diversified,  soul-saving  and  ecclesiastical  machinery,  together  with  world-wide opportunity, above all things else we want 'wrestlers with God '--men and women who know how to pray and who do pray. Not men and women who say prayers, but who pour out their hearts to Him, who call Him to remembrance and keep not silence, and give Him no rest, till He establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth' (Isa. lxii. 6, 7).

"Some weeks ago I went to a corps for the Sunday morning meeting, just the one meeting. Not many people knew I was coming. No special preparation was made; snow was on the ground, and less than one hundred people were present. But a wrestler with God was there, and oh, how he prayed! My heart melts within me yet as I think of it. He pleaded with God, he poured out his heart before Him. In his manner and words he was wondrously familiar with God, but it was that sweet familiarity that comes from utter self-abasement and deepest humility, and which enables its possessor to come with unabashed faith right face to face with God and ask great things of Him,  because  asking  only  for  His  honour  and  the  glory  of  His  Son.  That  morning  twenty-four people were at the Penitent-form seeking the Lord!

"Several years ago I wrote an article on the prayers of soul-winners. It fell into the hands of two young officers, one of whom is now in India, and they began to pray, and one of them it was reported, prayed all Saturday night.The next day they went to a hard corps, where it had almost been  impossible  to  get  anyone  to  make  a  start  for  Heaven,  and  that  day  they  saw  sixty-two people seeking God.

"The same article was read by a Captain in a certain corps. She became interested and read it to her soldiers, urging them to greater diligence in prayer. The spirit of prayer fell on the soldiers, and  some  of  them  used  to  ask  the  Captain  for  the  key  and  spend  half  the  night  in  the  hall wrestling with God until His power fell on the people, and scores of sinners were converted, and the largest corps in that State was built up, and the whole city was stirred.

"The other day, a staff officer in charge of a band of boys told me that a short time before, he went with his boys into a town, and after two hours' wrestling with God, he got the assurance of a  revival.  In  eighteen  days  they  saw  one  hundred  and  fifty  people  seeking  salvation,  and  fifty more seeking the blessing of a clean heart.

"More than all else the Lord wants these wrestling, pleading men.

"Indeed,  there  are  many  good  men,  but  few  wrestlers  with  God.  There  are  many  who  are interested in the cause of Christ, and who are pleased to see it prosper in their corps, their church, their city, their country. But there are but few who bear the burden of the world upon their souls day and night, who make His cause in every clime their very own, and who, like Eli, would die if the ark of God were taken; who feel it an awful shame and a consuming sorrow, if victory is not continually won in His name.

"This  spirit  of  prayer  is  fed  on  the  Word  of  God.  He  who  neglects  diligent,  daily  study  of  and meditation in the Word of God will soon neglect secret prayer, while he who feeds upon it will be  constantly  pouring  out  his  heart  in  prayer  and  praise,  and  in  this  as  in  all  things,  regular practice will cultivate, increase and perfect the spirit of prayer.

"Again, this spirit of prayer will only thrive where faith is active. Lazy, slow faith, quenches prayer.

"Prayer must be followed by watchfulness and dead-in-earnest, patient work, else it will soon grow sickly and die.

"Light and foolish talking and jesting, pride, over-sensitiveness that leads to suspicion, jealousy, envy,  selfish  ambition  even  in  Christian  work,  indulgence  of  appetite,  love  of  the  applause  of men and desire for the honour that man can give, an uncharitable spirit, criticism and the like, will surely quench the spirit of prayer.

"Jesus  says,  'Men  ought  always  to  pray,  and  not  to  faint'  (Luke  xviii.  1),  while  Paul  says,  'Pray without ceasing' (i Thess. v.17).