In his book, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of The Boat, Pastor John Ortberg tells a wonderful true story about the power of prayer.

It involves a Christian leader in Washington, D.C. named Doug Coe. Doug became a spiritual mentor to a new Christian whose name was Bob.

One day, Bob came in all excited about the verse in the Bible where Jesus says, “Ask whatever you will in my name, and you shall receive it.” “Is that really true?” Bob asked. Doug answered with a qualified yes, it is true. Christ answers prayer. “Great!” Bob said. “Then I gotta start praying for something. I think I’ll pray for Africa.”

Doug thought that was pretty broad and suggested Bob narrow his prayer to just one country. Bob decided on Kenya. So Doug challenged Bob to pray every day for six mon…