I've always found prayer to be a challenge, particularly carving out personal quiet time. Yet when I do, I'm rewarded with peace, a more orderly day and new insights into various challenges.

However, thanks to hearing stirring reports about prayer lately, I find myself more committed to daily prayer.

Currently I'm leading a weekly men's group in a discussion of Philip Yancey's latest book, "Prayer: Does it Make any Difference?" At our first meeting, I posed the question, "Why do you pray?"

Peace the passes understanding

Immediately, one man shared a heart-rending story of his wife giving birth to twins and one of them dying. In the midst of this ordeal, he found himself at home alone.

As he poured out his feelings to God, he sensed a peace filling him and the knowledge that, despite the pain, everything would be all right. Not only did that assurance gave him the strength to go on, the memory resonates two decades later.

Though I hadn't planned to mention it, his story reminded me of the answer to prayer I received during a major crisis.

Two days after my wife had outpatient surgery for pre-cancerous tissue in her breast, the doctor called to say, "It's worse than we thought. You need a mastectomy. And I can do it next week."

The day he named was the day before I was to fly to Colorado on a magazine assignment. The thought of trying to do that with my wife in the hospital was more than I could face.

The signs of prayer

Hopping on the computer, I sent out a flurry of e-mails. The following Monday, we learned that a second surgeon didn't have an immediate opening in his schedule, so it would be two more weeks before her operation. I sent more e-mails.

Seeing no reason to sit at home and mope, I agreed to make the trip, but found myself struggling with the idea. I still felt weak and drained of emotional reserves.

What happened next is miraculous. Within 24 hours, my outlook had taken a 180-degree turn. I felt energized and eager to go. My wife felt better, too.

I knew without a doubt that people had been praying for us. The results were apparent.

Miraculous healing

Recently I saw a story about a pastor in eastern Kentucky who was seriously injured when he clipped a gas meter with his riding lawnmower. The explosion sent him flying more than 20 feet and touched off a fire that nearly destroyed the parsonage.

Soon after, a local baseball game stopped so players, coaches and parents could pray. That evening, hundreds showed up to move his belongings out of the parsonage. After just a week, the pastor left the hospital and is recovering at his parents' home.

Although doctors said the burns on his legs would require skin grafts, in a few days they healed so quickly his home health nurses told him the grafts may not be necessary. "I just really can feel the prayers being answered on a day-to-day basis," he says.

What stories of answered prayer could stir people in your church to believe more strongly in the necessity of spending time with God? Could this become a regular feature of your Sunday or mid-week services, both to encourage people and enlist more participation in prayer?

Doing things in order

One caveat comes from Chuck Lawless, dean of the school of evangelism at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.: "Prayer testimonies can be helpful, but I'd be very careful to hear the testimony prior to opening the door for someone to speak publicly."

Granted, you don't want someone airing wild claims or exaggerations that can cause confusion. Yet, I think churches that take steps to bolster awareness of how prayer works will find it worthwhile. Revelation 12:11 says one way we overcome the devil is through the word of our testimony.