The Key to Open Doors

This article is taken from Ray Comfort’s upcoming book, Compelled! Please subscribe to our Weekly Newsletter to be the first to receive its release date!

If you’re talentless like me, you’re God’s material. So, even if you have nothing to offer, put yourself in His hands. Give Him everything. That draws Heaven’s special attention. Then pray that He uses you for His glory. Pray daily for wisdom and for opportunities to share your faith.

Here’s something personal I want to share because it’s important. I hesitated to bring it up, worried it might sound like boasting. But it’s not, since there’s nothing to boast about.

“If you’re talentless like me, you’re God’s material. So, even if you have nothing to offer, put yourself in His hands. Give Him everything.”

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In 1982 (around the dark time of chastening), I decided that I was going to wake up around midnight, get out of bed, and pray. I had a large blanket that I would wrap around myself, then sit or kneel, and pray for 30 minutes. I did this most nights each week for 38 years. Here’s why it doesn’t make me anything special: millions of night-shift workers wake up at night to go to work. According to the Census Bureau, about nine million people in the United States do this. They do it because they need to care for their families. I needed to do this for something more important.

I’ve never found praying easy because it goes against my nature to stay still. When I stay still, I feel like the clock stops too. To help me pray more effectively, I started going on early morning prayer walks. Later, I began getting out of bed at night.

I disliked waking up at night to pray. I would get the same sinking feeling I had as a young father, when I got up to put a pacifier in a screaming baby’s mouth. But I managed to get up until I turned 70. That’s when I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I would drift off during prayer night after night. Now I strive to pray without ceasing.

I tried to think of the things that God loves, and I prayed that He would give them to me. It seemed to me that He has at least seven virtues that are part of His character—virtues I wanted to make a part of mine:

Wisdom, understanding, initiative, creativity, ingenuity, insight, and discretion.

I also prayed for a worldwide revival. I asked God to raise up laborers because Jesus commanded it. And I earnestly prayed that God would use me for His glory.

And it’s my earnest prayer that this book hasn’t simply been entertaining for you. May it be more than that. May God use it to stir your heart to reach the lost.

Even though I groaned every time I got up to pray, I look back at the doors that God opened and attribute it to steadfast prayer—that He faithfully heard.

This article is taken from Ray Comfort’s upcoming book, Compelled!