By Tom Atkins
Indian Springs Holiness Camp Meeting is one of the great holiness camp meetings in America. Dr. Kinlaw was saved and sanctified on those hallowed grounds. It has been my privilege to be one of the evangelists there many times, but this year was different. There was a sense of urgency to say something that must be said to be faithful to God.
After months of praying and seeking God’s will, it finally came to me in Luke 22:44, “Being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood…”(NIV). Then in John 16:21 Jesus uses the word “travail” (KJV) as in the pain of a woman giving birth. So, I surmised if we wanted God to do something miraculous in our midst it would come only if we “travailed” in prayer. The greatest movements of the Spirit I have seen in all my years of doing local church revivals came because those churches truly had travailed in prayer prior to the services.
So, my first sermon on the opening night at Indian Springs, was a simple, short message on travailing prayer. I asked all those present to covenant with me to travail in prayer for the next ten days, starting right then. God did amazing things that week. One preacher shared that it was the best camp he had been to in over forty years. One lady hugged my neck, with tears in her eyes, and said, “You’ll never know what this week has meant to my family.”
We will never know how much God wants to work in our churches and in our camp meetings unless we “travail” in prayer.