George Washington - Praying Warror

Just one more about George...

If someone painted a picture of your prayer life what would it look like?

I am afraid mine would not even look as if I was praying. I think we have taken the verse 'pray without ceasing' as a license to not 'stop and pray'. We fire a few requests and maybe even a praise or two off in the shower or drive to work like we forward off a half read funny email.

We need to stop and travail before God in our prayers. If the subject of our prayers are not things we agonize over then we need to either get serious about them or find something worth praying about.

from below: “We never thought a man could be a soldier & a Christian”

Would someone be convinced that you are a true Christian by the fervency of your prayers? Something to think about.

Below is a excerpt from the diary of Rev. Nathaniel Randolph Snowden that inspired this panting.

The Prayer at Valley Forge

"I was riding with Mr. Potts near to the Valley Forge where the army lay during the war of ye Revolution, when Mr. Potts said, 'Do you see that woods & that plain? There laid the army of Washington. It was a most distressing time of ye war, and all were for giving up the Ship but that great and good man. In that woods (pointing to a close in view) I heard a plaintive sound as of a man at prayer. I tied my horse to a sapling & went quietly into the woods. To my astonishment I saw the great George Washington on his knees alone, with his sword on one side and his cocked hat on the other. He was at Prayer to the God of the Armies, beseeching to interpose with his Divine aid, as it was ye Crisis & the cause of the country, of humanity & of the world. Such a prayer I never heard from the lips of man. I left him alone praying. I went home & told my wife. We never thought a man could be a soldier & a Christian, but if there is one in the world, it is Washington. We thought it was the cause of God & America could prevail."
- Source: Eyewitness testimony of Isaac Potts, a Valley Forge resident who shared the following story with the Rev. Nathaniel Randolph Snowden (1770-1851), who then recorded it in his "Diary and Remembrances."