On a summer’s evening, almost two years ago, I walked into a meeting for prayer. I had longed for such a meeting all the day, for I had thought of those words, “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength,” and I hoped, when I found this meeting, that this would be my experience, for I felt the need of it. It turned out to be a small meeting, smaller than I had anticipated, for there were only seven or eight persons present, some young, others old and tired looking. The singing was flat and slow, and the prayers disappointing and dull; I had begun to wonder whether the evening was being wasted. Then an old man of more than eighty years spoke up and said to us, “My friends, I should like to share with you a great joy that I have got today. I must tell you that sixty-five years ago I knelt by my dying mother’s bed and she said to me, ‘— , you are the only one in the family that knows the Lord Jesus as your Saviour. I commend your father and your brothers to you. Pray for them every day until they are saved.’ This morning I got this letter from my last remaining brother, and I will read it to you.” Then very quietly, he read, “Dear, dear brother, I have the very best of news for you, I have yielded myself at last to God.” And the letter, in the simplest language, told how it all came about, and was full of thankfulness to the brother who for sixty-five years had persevered in prayer for him and watched for his salvation.
You will not need to be told that this simple story transformed that little prayer meeting, and that it ceased to be dull and desultory. Eyes became moist and hearts were moved, while those who had kept their seats before now bowed their knees. There was thanksgiving first, and then definite and earnest prayer — prayer with a purpose in it, for here was evidence that it was not in vain to pray, and though the answer be long delayed in God’s wise ways, yet at last it comes.
J. T. Mawson (adapted)