Fervency in prayer is written about in E. M. Bound’s book on prayer, aptly called, On Prayer.
“Prayer, without fervor, stakes nothing on the issue, because it has nothing to stake. It comes with empty hands. Heart, soul, and life, must find place in all real praying. Heaven must be made to feel the force of this crying unto God.” E. M. Bounds
It is the fervent prayer that is effectual. Coldness of spirit hinders praying, prayer cannot live in a wintry atmosphere. The atmosphere about is too heavily charged with resisting forces for limp or languid prayers to make headway.
Our inward groaning, our secret desires our heart-longings are not hidden from the eyes of him with whom we have to deal in prayer.
Fervency has its seat in the heart, not in the brain, not in the intellectual faculties of the mind. Fervency, therefore, is not an expression of the intellect. A spirit of fervancy is something far transcending poetical fancy or sentimental imagery.
Our Lord warns against feeble praying.
It is not in our power, perhaps to create fervency of spirit at will, but we can pray God to implant it. However, it is ours, then, to nourish and cherish it…….It is never out of place to pray God to work within us, and to keep alive the spirit of fervent prayer.
But there is a point,……at which faith is relieved of its burden, so to speak, where trust comes along and says, “you have done your part, the rest is mine.” E. M. Bounds
My take on fervency in prayer
The above was from E. M. Bound’s magnificent book. It’s a huge book and he has a lot to say. I have to be in the right frame of mind to read it because it requires a lot of thought.
I feel it’s important to point out that fervency in prayer will look different on different people. E. M. Bounds tries to explain but perhaps the era in which he wrote makes it difficult to understand. But as I have read this book, I think I am safe to say that E. M. is referring to the intensity of the prayer, not the emotional way it is prayed. I doubt very much the intensity of my words is as strong as others I’ve heard pray.
It doesn’t mean we have to cry or moan to be fervent. Fervency for me would never look like that because that’s not who I am. But if it looks like that on you, that’s fine. Again, it’s more of the intensity and the earnestness of the person praying, not how dramatic the prayer might sound.
That said, however, I think we can learn a lesson from this section E. M. Bound’s book, on prayer. We can probably all ask ourselves, are we as fervent or as excited in prayer, as we are when talking about other things or in conversation with others? Do we sound as saddened as we do when talking abou
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God bless and have a great day.
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