By Wah Lok

The song "Every Time I Pray" was written in 1981 for Full Gospel Tabernacle's (FGT) first church camp. At that time, FGT was at her infancy, with only 30 people. Most of the members were young. The leaders were also young at that time. At our first meeting, we raised only a few thousand ringgit which was not even sufficient to pay for the church fixtures. I remembered we were poor and had to sit on the floor at our first few meetings. This was the setting when the song was written.

"Every Time I Pray" is our cry to God for help. It reflected our faith in God that He could see us through all the difficulties we faced at that time. We believed in prayer. The church was built on prayer. Prayer has always been and will continue to be the foundation of the church. Before every major decision was taken by the leadership, there would always be a call for the church to pray for a period of time.

Today, 20 years later, although FGT has grown to almost 700 members, prayer remains one of the most important activities of the church. Every leader, worker, musician, singer etc. are required to attend the Prayer Meetings on Friday and Sunday mornings. This is a non negotiable requirement. Over the years, there has been pressures on the leadership to remove the Friday prayer meetings but the leadership have always resisted this move. It is still a fundamental belief that prayer is the single most important activity in the Church.

There are several recordings of the song in Taiwan, Hong Kong and United States in the Mandarin language. However this is the first English recording of the song. I do not know why God has chosen to single out this song to be the most "anointed" among the 70 songs I have written. I can only guess that it could be because it was written at that period of time when we were weak and desperately seeking God's face. Another reason could be that God really wants all of us to understand the importance of prayer as reflected in the lyrics of the song.


Every Time I Pray
Lyrics and Music : Wah Lok, 2nd verse: Voon Yuen Woh, 1981

Verse 1
I will come to You in prayer
I will seek Your face
I will stand within the gap
There will I intercede

Chorus:-
For every time I pray
I move the hand of God
My prayer does the things
My hands cannot do
For every time I pray
The mountains are removed
The paths are made straight
And nations turn to you.

2nd vers
I am weak and helpless Lord
You, my strength shall be
Guide me with Your gracious hand
There will my victory be.

© 1981 Wah Lok and Voon Yuen Wo