Saturating Minds, Filling Hearts, Praying Daily

Have you ever asked the question: how can we influence others to want to get to know Jesus Christ personally? Towards the end of Prayer, The Mightiest Force in the World,Frank Laubach raises this timeless question, and sketches an answer:

“How shall we help all men to know Him? That was Paul’s question, and it still is ours. The greatest way to help Christ conquer the world is to saturate our own minds with Him. We do this by thinking about Christ and His Kingdom as much as we can. If we think about Him we shall inevitably witness for Him and work for Him. Other people will catch Him from us by our deeds and words. ‘Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh’”(page 97).

“How can we saturate our minds with Christ? There is but one way to get a true picture of Him. That is to read His life in the four Gospels so often that we know it by heart. We who wish to be Christlike ought never to allow a day to pass without reading at least a chapter of the Gospels. We get the best results if we take a definite hour (and a fresh hour) every day.” (page 98).

In the final pages of Prayer, Laubach challenges his readers to give time, and heart and mind and soul and strength and prayer to God’s world task . . .He writes that we must think thoughts worthy of the sons and daughters of God. He concludes his practical call to prayer with a prayer of his own that we would do well to pray in our day:

“God, use my prayer to help the delegates and officials of the United Nations to feel a sense of awful need for Thy wisdom. May they pray, listen to Thee intently, hear Thee correctly, and obey Thee perfectly. Use my prayer to give Christians everywhere a sense of awful responsibility to pray, to listen to Thee and hear Thee right, and obey Thee fully. Use me as an open channel for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon mankind” (page 126-127).

Three Practical ways to Pray

Frank Laubach’s Prayer, The Mightiest Force in the World, presents many helpful suggestions on how to pray. Here is a selection that you can try:


PRAY with pencil and paper at hand
“When God sends a thought, write it down and keep it visible until it can be carried into action. Pray for individuals by name. Vital prayers always suggest things to be done. Indeed, prayer and action must be mates, or both are weak. The mightiest men and women on earth are strong in prayer and strong in deeds ” (pages 74-75).

Flash Prayers
“Everybody in every ordinary day has hundreds of chinks of idle wasted time which may be filled with flash prayers ten seconds or a minute long.” Here are (selected, and modified) illustrations of such moments:
• Upon awakening in the morning
• Dressing
• Asking the blessing at table
• Leaving the house
• Driving or walking to work
• Between appointments
• Preparing meals
And a hundred more chinks of time all day long until crawling into bed and falling asleep (pages 75-76).


Pray for Others
“Far from making one tired, this prayer for others is the finest tonic I know. When you are utterly tired from work or study, walk out into the street and flash prayers at people. Your nerves will tingle with the inflow from heaven. Prayer ‘is twice blest, it blesses him that gives and him that receives’” (page 78).