David Brainerd's Prayer Life: How He Prayed, in His Own Words
David Brainerd prayed alone, often, and for a long time. Most days he went out to the woods or to his "usual place of retirement" for secret prayer, often for an hour or two. Again and again he set apart whole days for fasting and prayer. He prayed most of all for others: for the Native Americans he was sent to, for his friends, and for the kingdom of Christ to spread through the world. He called this kind of praying "wrestling" with God, and some days he came away from it exhausted and soaked with sweat.
We know this because he wrote it down. His diary, edited by Jonathan Edwards, is in TheWay Library as The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, Chiefly Extracted from His Diary. Everything below is in his own words, with the date and chapter so you can read the whole entry.
He learned first that prayer earns nothing
Brainerd's prayer life starts with a lesson from before his conversion. As a young man he prayed hard and fasted, and he quietly hoped God would be moved to save him because of it. In chapter 1 he tells how God stripped that hope away:
Now I saw that there was no necessary connection between my prayers and the bestowment of divine mercy; that they laid not the least obligation upon God to bestow his grace upon me.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, Chapter I
He even compared those prayers to "paddling with my hand in the water." After his conversion he prayed more than ever, but never as a way of earning anything. A few years later he wrote, "O if ever I get to heaven, it will be because God pleases, and nothing else."
Secret prayer, every day
The diary is full of a phrase that sounds old to us: "secret duties." It means private prayer, Bible reading and self-examination, done alone. Brainerd guarded this time. When he had to travel or stay in a busy house, he grieved over it. At Kaunaumeek he built a hut with his own hands, and when he moved in he wrote, "Blessed be the Lord, who has now given me a place of retirement." A few months later, from chapter 5:
I love to live alone in my own little cottage, where I can spend much time in prayer, &c.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, chapter 5 (Nov. 29, 1743)
He also noticed a pattern in himself. The more he prayed, the more he wanted to:
I have generally found that the more I do in secret prayer, the more I have delighted to do, and the more I have enjoyed a spirit of prayer; and frequently I have found the contrary, when by journeying or otherwise I have been much deprived of retirement.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, chapter 5 (Aug. 4, 1743)
Whole days of fasting and prayer
Brainerd regularly set apart a day "for fasting and prayer." These days often began dull and heavy and ended in freedom. One of the most striking is from April 19, 1742, when he was preparing for the ministry. From chapter 2:
God enabled me so to agonize in prayer, that I was quite wet with sweat, though in the shade and the cool wind. My soul was drawn out very much for the world; I grasped for multitudes of souls.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, chapter 2 (April 19, 1742)
On December 6, 1744, alone in a new cabin at the Forks of the Delaware, he spent a day confessing his discouragement and asking for help. He prayed so long he lost track of time:
I was enabled to persevere in prayer until sometime in the evening; at which time I saw so much need of divine help, in every respect, that I knew not how to leave off, and had forgot that I needed food.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, chapter 6 (Dec. 6, 1744)
Edwards noticed how often these days were followed by blessing. In his closing reflections in chapter 10 he urges ministers and ordinary Christians alike to practice secret fasting, and says that among all Brainerd's days of fasting and prayer "there is scarcely an instance of one which was not either attended or soon followed with apparent success."
Praying with the Bible open
On his fasting days Brainerd often read long stretches of Scripture and prayed through what he read. On November 3, 1743 he read the life of Elijah, then Exodus, then the stories of Abraham and Joseph:
My soul was much moved, observing the faith, zeal, and power of that holy man; how he wrestled with God in prayer, &c.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, chapter 5 (Nov. 3, 1743)
He wrote that he "saw that God is the same that he was in the days of Elijah," and that "nothing seemed too hard for God to perform." The next summer, reading Daniel's prayer in Daniel 9, he drew the same lesson:
I saw how God had called out his servants to prayer, and made them wrestle with him, when he designed to bestow any great mercy on his church.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, chapter 6 (June 30, 1744)
Intercession: praying for others
What filled Brainerd's prayers most was intercession. He prayed for "the poor heathen," for distant friends, for ministers, even for his enemies. On his birthday in 1742 he "had a most fervent wrestle with the Lord to-night, for my enemies." The next day:
I enjoy of late more sweetness in intercession for others, than in any other part of prayer. My blessed Lord really let me come near to him, and plead with him.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, chapter 2 (April 21, 1742)
His concern went beyond the people in front of him. In August 1743 he wrote that his soul "was concerned, not so much for souls as such, but rather for Christ’s kingdom, that it might appear in the world, that God might be known to be God, in the whole earth."
Even when he was too sick to preach, he kept praying for his congregation. During his long illness at Elizabethtown in the winter of 1746 to 1747, cut off from his people, he wrote in chapter 9:
…was enabled to intercede with God for my dear congregation, very often for every family, and every person in particular. It was often a great comfort to me, that I could pray heartily to God for those to whom I could not speak, and whom I was not allowed to see.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, chapter 9
Prayer before the breakthrough
The clearest picture of Brainerd's praying comes in July 1744 at the Forks of the Delaware. He heard the Indians were gathering for an idolatrous feast the next day and spent the evening in prayer:
I was in such anguish, and pleaded with such earnestness and importunity, that when I rose from my knees I felt extremely weak and overcome; I could scarcely walk straight; my joints were loosed; the sweat ran down my face and body, and nature seemed as if it would dissolve.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, chapter 6 (July 21, 1744)
He went to them the next morning and nothing remarkable happened. He was tempted to think God couldn't convert them, but he wrote that he "was determined still to wait upon God for the conversion of the heathen." A year later the revival broke out at Crossweeksung. Edwards introduces that part of the story by saying the success came "after all his agonizing in prayer, and travailing in birth for their conversion." We tell the story in Who Was David Brainerd?
Dry seasons
Brainerd didn't always feel like praying, and he said so. Many entries read simply "was very dull" or "had little life." He found that the answer was to keep going:
It is good, I find, to persevere in attempts to pray, if I cannot pray with perseverance, i. e. continue long in my addresses to the Divine Being.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, chapter 5 (Aug. 4, 1743)
What we can take from it
E. M. Bounds used Brainerd as a leading example of the praying minister in Power Through Prayer. We look at that teaching in Men Are God's Method. You don't have to live in the wilderness to learn from him:
- Keep a set place and time. Brainerd's "usual place of retirement" was where most of his prayer happened.
- Set apart a day now and then. Fasting and prayer was not an emergency measure for him. It was a habit.
- Pray with the Bible open. Let the prayers of Elijah, Moses and Daniel shape yours.
- Pray for others by name. He prayed "for every family, and every person in particular."
- Keep praying when it's dry. He kept praying when he felt nothing.
To read more of his words, see David Brainerd Diary Quotes and The Life of David Brainerd: A Summary. Better still, read the diary itself on the book's page.