In a letter to a close friend Andrew Bonar wrote, “Oh brother pray; in spite of Satan, pray; spend hours in prayer, rather neglect friends than not pray, rather fast, and lose breakfast, dinner, supper and sleep too – than not pray. And we must not talk about prayer – we must pray in right earnest. The Lord is near. He comes softly while The Virgins Slumber.” Andrew Bonar lived in a time of revival and yet he was always praying for more of God’s revival power.
His diary again makes this clear. Wednesday, 21st, – “Enabled to spend nearly the whole day in prayer, praise and confession. I was led to deep humiliation for our church, and prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost on my people. I spread out several promises before the Lord, and my heart was sore with desire and yet glad with expectation of what this day may obtain for me. But I find true what Samuel Rutherford wrote: ‘A bed watered with tears, a throat dry with praying, eyes a fountain of tears for the sins of the land are rarely to be found among us.'”
Andrew Bonar was a man who was intimately acquainted with Jesus Christ. As a result he saw what Jesus saw and therefore cared, wept and prayed like Jesus. Far too often our own eyes are dry because our eyes are blind to the needs around us. Many of us have become blinded by the temporal, till we can no longer see the eternal reality of the holiness of heaven and horrors of hell. Lord draw us back to the prayer closet where blind eyes see and hardened hearts are broken. Lord, have mercy and bring us to brokenness!
Andrew Bonar was just one of many Scottish ministers used of God during the Kilsyth Revival of 1839-1840.
Comments
God is amazing leading me to read this article this morning when l really need.
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Peace,
Elle