While away on a personal planning retreat, I re-read some sections from John Piper’s excellent book Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. I cannot begin to express how convicted I am over the chapters I read, particularly his comments on prayer:

From chapter 8: “Brothers, Let Us Pray”

53 – He ordains to fulfill His plans by being asked to do so by us. God loves to bless His people. But even more He loves to do it in answer to prayer.

54 – A pastor who feels competent in himself to produce eternal fruit – which is the only kind that matters – knows neither God nor himself. A pastor who does not know the rhythm of desperation and deliverance must have his sights only on what man can achieve.

But brothers, the proper goals of the life of a pastor are unquestionably beyond our reach. The changes we long for in the he arts of our people can happen only by a sovereign work of grace.

55 – The essence of the Christian ministry is that its success is not within our reach.

A cry for help from the heart of a childlike pastor is sweet praise in the ears of God. Nothing exalts Him more than the collapse of self-reliance which issues in passionate prayer for help.

56 – The reason so few conversions are happening through my church is not because we lack a program or staff. It is because we do not love the lost and yearn for their salvation the way we should. And the reason we do not love them as we ought is because such love is a miracle that overcomes our selfish bent.

With such “agonizing together” God may grant tears. And without those tears we may shuffle members from church to church, but few people will pass from darkness to light.

Take one of your days off and go away by yourself and pray about how you should pray. Say to yourself right now: “God help me to do something radical in regard to prayer!” Refuse to believe that the daily hours Luther and Wesley and Brainerd and Judson spent in prayer are idealistic dreams of another era.

Are our packed calendars and handled computers really fulfilling our own hunger for life in Christ, let alone the hunger of our people and the world? Are not our people really yearning to be around a man who has been around God?

58 – from Spurgeon of Jerome in producing the Latin Vulgate: Away he went and labored and prayed until he produced the Latin Vulgate, which will last as long as the world stands. So we must say to our friends, “I must go away and have time for prayer and solitude.” And though we did not write Latin Vulgates, yet our work will be immortal: Glory to God.