Prayer and TrustPrayer and Trust is the second of an 10-part series of E.M. Bounds' epic, Necessity of PrayerNecessity of Prayer, which was first published in the early 1900s. This component includes the Foreword of his book and its third chapter, which contains Bound’s teaching on the faith’s mainstay of trust in God.

Trust is a simple five-letter word whose meaning packs encyclopedic implications.

To trust is to have thorough confidence and faith in the object of your trust—someone or something. Trust implies relationship. It is a trait of believing in the truth, honesty, strength and reliability of another person or thing. In Prayer and TrustPrayer and Trust, you will see how prayer, by nature, must rely on trust in God for it to be effectual.

When you pray, do you pray in strong faith? Do you pray in the belief that what you are praying for is in God’s will? That he has the ability, strength and will to provide what you seek in your request? And, do you without a doubt believe that He will provide it?

Those are the key questions that the author answers in this segment of the series of Necessity of PrayerNecessity of Prayer. Trust is a necessity of prayer, one of 11 indispensable qualities, or necessities, of effective praying.

Trusting in your faith in the Lord Jesus when you pray is not always easy. Bounds teaches, and most Christians will agree, that such trust “is reached only after many a failure, after much praying, after many waitings, after much trial of faith.” Bounds prays that our faith would increase until we realize and receive all the fullness there is in Christ’s name, which guarantees to do so much. We should pray that also for the reasons and in the manner that this volume instructs.

You see, Jesus gave us no definition of trust at anytime in is ministry. He furnished no theological discussion or analysis of it. Instead, He knew that men would see that trust was attained by what faith accomplished. From faith’s free exercise, trust would grow.

Trust grows the same way today as it did then: in His presence. Faith and trust were and are the products of Jesus Christ’s work, His power, His Person. As Bounds teaches, “Trust is altogether too splendidly simple for verbal definition; too hearty and spontaneous for theological terminology. The very simplicity of trust is that which staggers many people.”

In his Necessity of PrayerNecessity of Prayer, E.M. Bounds presents the reasons why you might feel that prayer life is a waste of time. A leading 19th-20th century authority on and teacher of prayer, a pastor and theologian, an army chaplain, a theologian and evangelist, Bounds has encouraging suggestions for you, solutions that you can put to work today, solutions that work.

Prayer gives your faith its vibrancy. It is a blessed gift and privilege from our Creator, allowing the faithful to communicate one-on-one with Him. In personal, individual and in corporate prayer, we honor God and we impress our faith to Him. In doing that, God projects to the world.

So, do as E.M. Bounds explains and exhorts: Stretch forth your hands and your heart in faith. And in doing so, you’ll lay hold of the power of Christ in your life.

This excerpt from the author’s writing is presented with annotations that were not part of the original manuscript. It includes end-notes of available biographical summaries of cited quotations and references given in the public domain work. And, this publication contains a guide for individual or group study and discussion.