Mike Bickle: 40 Years Ago, I Would Have Doubted an Angel Who Told Me This

Mike Bickle detested praying.

“I said, ‘I shall do anything but prayer. Please, not this,'” Bickle says.

Seems ironic given that he founded one of the largest prayer movements in the world.

Despite his personal feelings, he forced himself into an intercessory habit.

“I’m just really being straightforward; I hated it,” Bickle says. “I would pray an hour a day, and it would be the most miserable hour. I remember saying, ‘Lord, if I’ve got to do this to be a man of God, I’m never going to make it.’ If an angel would have appeared to me that 40-plus years ago and said, ‘Yeah, young man of God, one day you’ll have a 24-hour-a-day prayer ministry,’ I would have just collapsed in despair.”

Twenty years ago, though, Bickle launched the International House of Prayer and never looked back. Literally. It’s gone non-stop every minute for the last 20 years.

Now, he has tips for the rest of us who want to be people of prayer but just can’t quite seem to grasp it.

“One key part of prayer is, and everyone can’t have this part, but whenever you can, I encourage it, is having anointed music be a part of it. That’s not critical, but boy, if you can have anointed music involved, prayer is way more enjoyable. So, that’s one,” he says.

Listen to the podcast for the rest.