p. 5 | Prayer in the Home by GEO. O. STATES

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 19, 1911

Prayer in the Home

By GEO. O. STATES

GEO. O. STATES

“Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”

We see by these texts that under whatever circumstances we may be placed, it is our privilege to make our requests known to God. When we seek the Lord in earnest prayer, and the Spirit of God brings our faults before us, we are to confess our faults one to another, and pray one for another, that we may be healed. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” It is a blessed thought that we may come to the Lord in confidence that he will hear and answer our prayers.

My first recollection of religious influences is closely associated with a praying mother. In those days my father made no profession, but mother always had family prayers. She would pray, then my older brother, then I. Sometimes when work was not pressing, father would remain and kneel with us. One night we had our usual worship, and were about to arise, when for the first time I heard my father’s voice in prayer. There was rejoicing in our home that night; we wept for joy. As soon as mother had the opportunity, she talked to us, telling us that father was going to live the truth. A few weeks later it was our happy privilege to see Elder J. N. Loughborough lead father into the river and baptize him into the third angel’s message. Brethren and sisters, there is power in prayer, and there is power in a Christlike life in the home.

Father and mother both sleep in Jesus, and I have no doubt but that I shall meet them when the dead in Christ arise. It has been my happy privilege during my many years in the ministry to encourage many fathers and mothers and children to enter the Christian life, and to establish the family altar in their homes; and I have baptized children and parents. As I look over my past experience in the ministry, I can not but feel that the family worship in our home had much to do in causing me to give

my life to the proclamation of the message.

I want to ask you, Do you have family prayers in your home? Do business cares press in and cause you to neglect this important factor in living the Christian life? If so, I hope that as the result of reading these words you will renew the family altar.

Cedaredge, Colo.