The Man is the Prayer.

Then prayer is a life.  The life is what you are in yourself.  It is not the mere span of years you live through.  Your thoughts and loves, your heart’s ambitions and gripping purposes, the things you will to do, and to be—­that is your life.  That exerts an enormous influence upon the circle in which you live, and upon the world.

If underneath all else that driving purpose, that warm, intense love-power, that yearning desire, is Godward, and manward, and world-ward, that becomes a prayer, a continual prayer.  You are not thinking of it that way.  But that is your life, and that life is a prayer.  Its influence against the evil one and for God is enormous.

That is a prayer unceasing, as long and as strong as your life itself.  Satan fears it.  It hinders him and thwarts him every day.  The fragrant incense from the censer of your life rises up before the throne of God continually, and affects the events on the earth.[28]

And then prayer is a person.  That is to say, you yourself may be a prayer, a walking prayer offered up in Jesus’ name.  Your presence will affect the evil one, and change events, and help God in His plans.  You may be so allied with Jesus in the simple gripping purpose of your heart that you yourself, where you are, by your mere presence, will be recognized by evil spirits, and by the Master Himself as a mighty power for God.

Your presence disturbs the evil one’s plan.  It has an influence upon those you meet.  It is helping God.  The whole effect of your presence is precisely the same as a prayer.  You are a prayer yourself, though unconsciously.  The whole trend of your life says, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.”

A few years ago President Roosevelt’s daughter was a member of the Taft party that visited parts of the Orient.  She did not go as the President’s daughter, of course.  There could be no official significance attached to her presence.  We Americans can understand better than some others that she went simply as a young woman eager to see Japan and China, not as the President’s daughter.

But everywhere she went in the Orient she was treated not merely as a member of the party, but as the daughter of the President of the United States.  Presents were made to her, receptions tendered, and deference shown, because of her personal relation to her father.  To the Orientals her presence stood for the head of our Government.  They treated her in relation to him.

Even so it is with us Christians.  The evil one doesn’t think of you and me for ourselves simply.  He thinks of us in relation to the Jesus, who is his Victor.  We stand to him down here for Jesus.  He fears us as he fears Jesus.  That is, he can be made to fear us, by our being true to our Lord.

The final purpose of prayer is to defeat Satan and to bring about God’s will.  And we do just that in our persons, by our presence; or we may.  Prayer is a person.  You are a prayer.  The man himself becomes a tremendous prayer, off-setting evil influences, changing men and events, and helping God in His plans.