There’s a person to whom I owe a word of thanks. I cannot express how much this special person has meant to me through the years as I’ve walked with Christ. Though deserving of recognition, this person would rather not be singled out.

Let me describe this kind of Christian.  He or she may be a young person, middle-aged or senior adult; but what sets them apart is their devotion to prayer. This person may not participate in a visible position of Christian service such as Sunday School teacher, usher, deacon or church secretary.

However, they serve in what could be described as a hidden position, devoting consistent, and often intense, time to communication with God, which is why they are sometimes called “prayers warriors.”

One could define a prayer warrior as an individual who is willing to prayer for others at a moment’s notice, because they possess a compassion for people that gives them a heart for that person’s need.  It’s been said that “rich is the person who has praying friend.”

When a need arises, I can pick up the phone and give a prayer warrior a call, knowing they will start praying and keep on praying for me. Then, when God answers, I let them know so we can rejoice together.

Sometimes a prayer warrior will begin praying for people because they stay in tune with God, listening closely to His voice. No matter what time of the day or night, God may speak to their heart with an urgency to pray for a specific need. This person will immediately intercede, asking God to intervene in the situation.

Testimonies abound from those prayers.  Ask James Stegall, who served in Vietnam. His base came under attack on Feb. 26, 1968. He was sure he only had seconds to live because rockets were exploding around him. A friend shoved him into a grease pit just as a rocket landed, but the fuse malfunctioned, and it didn’t detonate.

For five hours, he crouched in that pit and read the New Testament he kept in his shirt pocket, beginning in the book of Matthew. When he got to chapter 18, verse 19, “If two of you shall agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven,” he said he knew everything was going to be alright.

Years after he returned home, Stegall found out his wife’s grandmother had been awakened to pray for him, even though she didn’t know what was happening half a world away. She had marked the same verse from Matthew on a page in her Bible and the date Feb. 26, 1968.

The devotional book, “God Calling,” written from God’s perspective, tells the importance of prayer warriors. “The world has always seen service for Me to be activity. Only those near to Me have seen that a life apart, of prayer, may, and does so often, accomplish more than all the service a man can offer Me.”