1. THE Sermon on the Mount provides us with the precept, the reasonableness, the character, and the form of prayer.
It gives us the precept: “Ask, and it shall be given you”. It shows us the reasonableness—for “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” It discovers the character of prayer when it bids us use no vain repetitions, remembering that God knows our needs before we ask Him. And it provides the mould or type or form of prayer in the words of the Lord’s Prayer.
(1) First, we have the precept. Prayer is a duty of the Christian life enjoined upon us all by our Saviour Himself, and therefore to neglect prayer- is to break one of the commandments of God. It is well to feel the pressure of this command and to experience once again the freshness of its force. And the impression is deepened when we see how our Saviour supported His teaching by His example. Nor was it merely for the sake of example that He prayed; prayer was in some mysterious sense a necessary part of His ministerial life. In the moment of His baptism He prayed, and a voice was heard from heaven, “This is my beloved Sou, in whom I am well pleased”. He prayed on the mount, and His face and whole form was transfigured; to St. Peter He said, “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not”; in the garden of the agony He prayed for Himself, and on the cross He prayed for His enemies: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”. Sometimes, too, He would pray all night in view of some coming event, as before His choice of the Twelve; and He enjoins upon all of us the double attitude of watchfulness and prayer as a necessary prescription for the snares and temptations of the world.
(2) Now prayer, as thus set before us, is no mere vague and general exercise, but individuals as well as communities are mentioned by name, and many and various requests are made both for self and for others. Prayer is therefore a reasonable exercise as well as an attitude of the soul; for if asking be the primary meaning of prayer, is not our everyday life full of it? Power comes from God and is variously distributed to men; and, although much of it is ours without our asking, the general rule is that we must ask for things if we would have them; they are not ours merely because they lie about us; we have to bestir ourselves and let our requests be made known to others in order that we may obtain blessings for ourselves.
(3) Next, there is the character of prayer. Our Lord reminds us that if prayer to God is but an extension of that principle which leads us to beg favours from our fellow-men, nevertheless we have to remember that He is in heaven, whereas we are on earth, that He knows our necessities before we ask, and that we must therefore avoid vain repetitions, inasmuch as we shall not be heard for our much speaking. It is true that prayer is not merely asking, but also any form of communion with God; nevertheless its primary meaning is petition, and we do not know how to pray until we have learnt how to ask.
(4) Lastly, the Sermon on the Mount gives us the right type or form of prayer. For the Lord’s Prayer is not merely one among a number of prayers, but the representative prayer of all; and as in matters of taste a standard or idea of the subject must first be set up in our minds, all our efforts being made as far as possible to conform to it, so is it also with prayer. Thus we ought to recognize in the “Our Father,” over and beyond the special beauty and grandeur that attach to it as proceeding from our Saviour’s own lips, a framework for all prayers whatsoever, or, to change the figure, the normal lines upon which all our prayers of whatever kind should be made to run. And, first, we are directed to a Person and a Place outside us: to our Father, and to Heaven, where He has His throne; suggesting to us how a picture in the mind at the outset will provide a help to our prayers throughout, while the address to God as “Our Father” proclaims the unity of the Church, and that exhibition of the family life which it is intended to portray. Next, we prepare the way for our petitions by submitting beforehand to God’s will. “Thy kingdom come”—may Thy rule gradually obtain everywhere, may the visible borders of Thy Church be extended, and every thought be brought at length into captivity to Christ; “that Christ may dwell in” our hearts “by faith,” that “being rooted and grounded in love,” we may “be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height”; that is, that the will of God may be done on earth as it is done in heaven; not as though our prayer were put forth as an attempt to alter God’s will, but on the contrary in direct obedience to His command, prayer itself being according to that will and part of the machinery for carrying it out.
After this our Lord showed me concerning Prayer. I saw two conditions [needful] in them that pray, according to that I have felt in myself.
One is, they will not pray for anything that may be, but that thing that is God’s will and His worship.
Another is, that they set them mightily and continually to beseech that thing that is His will and His worship. [Note: Lady Julian, Comfortable Words for Christ’s Lovers, 96.]
The dear God hears and pities all;
He knoweth all our wants;
And what we blindly ask of Him
His love withholds or grants.
And so I sometimes think our prayers
Might well be merged in one;
And nest and perch and hearth and church
Repeat “Thy will be done”.
[Note: Whittier, The Common Question.]
2. The most obvious fact in the Lord’s Prayer, when regarded as the norm of all prayer, is that God comes first. This prayer, with which we are so familiar as often to miss its significance, is a perpetual reminder of this, a perpetual safeguard against all unworthier conceptions of prayer. For it bids us think first of God and His holiness, of the spread of that holiness on earth, of His heavenly will being done. Only then follow personal petitions, and of these three are concerned with the spiritual obstacles which separate us from God: forgiveness of sin, rescue from temptation, deliverance from evil. One only is devoted to our temporal welfare, and that in its simplest form, “Give us bread enough for today”. And even this, of course, in the light of Christ’s teaching, passes up into a spiritual significance, and leads our thoughts on to the meat which is to do God’s will, and the bread that came down from heaven. Thus the Lord’s Prayer teaches us to pray, in the deepest sense of the word, for it shows us the true order and importance and proportion of the objects of prayer; and to live it out is to live in union with God. Naturally we are disposed to reverse the order. Our own personal needs are so present and pressing that these are ever ready to come uppermost, and then they occupy us so much that the time which ought to be devoted to praise and thanksgiving is often wanting. The consequence of this is that faith is weakened, and prayer becomes so purely selfish that it loses its power both over ourselves and over God.
Some good people never go outside the circle of self in their prayers. Yet the last place in the world where we should be selfish is when we are on our knees. A minister made a strange request of a parishioner—that for a month he should not offer a single word of prayer for himself, or for any of his family, nor bring any of his own affairs to God. “What then shall I pray for?” asked the friend. “Anything that is in your heart, only not once for yourself.” When the good man came to his first season of prayer it seemed that he could find nothing to pray for. He would begin a familiar petition, but had to drop it, for it was something for himself. It was a serious month for him, but he learned his lesson. He found that he had been praying only for himself and his own household, and had not been taking the interests of any others to God. The Lord’s Prayer teaches us to pray for others with ourselves. It is not, “Give me this day my daily bread,” but “Give us our bread today,” leaving out no other hungry one. [Note: J. R. Miller, The Glory of the Commonplace, 238.]
My brother, take heed to that for which thou prayest !there lies the difference between the pious and the impious mind. It is not thy praying that makes thee good—not even thy sincerity in prayer. It is not thy sense of want that makes thee good—not even though expressed in abjectness. It is not thy feeling of dependence that makes thee good—not even thy feeling of dependence on Christ. It is the thing for which thou prayest, the thing for which thou hungerest, the thing for which thou dependest. Every man cries for his grapes of Eshcol; the difference is not in the cry, but in the grapes. It is possible for thee to ask from thy God three manner of things. Thou mayst ask thy neighbour’s vineyard—that is bad. Thou mayst ask thine own riches—that is neither bad nor good; it is secular. Or thou mayst ask to be made unselfish—that is holy. It is not thy prayer that thy Father prizes; it is the direction of thy prayer. Dost thou deem thy child a hero because he asks thee for a holiday? Nay, though he sought it sorrowing and with tears. But if he asks thee to let him share his joy with a brother or sister, then thou art exceeding glad, then thou sayest, “Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee!” So with thy Father. He waits till thou criest for a crown—till thou prayest for His presence, longest for His light, sighest for His song, hungerest for His home, faintest for His footfall, tallest for His company, tarriest for His tread, seekest for the sign of His coming. That will be thy Father’s highest joy. [Note: George Matheson, Thoughts for Life’s Journey, 183.]
I.
We have begun with God. We have considered the place of Adoration in the life of prayer; and we have considered the place of Confession. Now we turn to Petition, using that word in the sense of asking blessings for ourselves.
1. What may we ask God for? The answer is, “Everything”. Nothing is too great and nothing too small to be remembered before God. No department of life should be excluded from the sphere of prayer. All our wants, all the wants of others, can be brought to the throne of grace. “In everything,” writes St. Paul, “by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” The Christian feels that there is no desire, plan, or enterprise, no act and no relationship of life, in which he is not dependent on Divine guidance, help, and blessing. He also feels that his relation of a child involves the confiding and unreserved love which pours out the whole heart before God. And if we are to give thanks in everything, and do all things to the glory of God, how is it possible that any step or duty or activity of life should be excluded from our petitions? As life wears on, brings out its trials and reveals its uncertainties, the religious soul is more and more thrown back on God as the only One who knows us, who fully sympathizes with us, and who can really help us. Thus the soul comes to carry everything to God in the assurance that He hears us, sympathizes with us, and will help us as His love may prompt and His wisdom may direct. It would be an unreal and unwholesome refinement which would seek to displace this childlike openness and confidence by some colourless and general expression of trust. To pray about everything in submission to God’s will would be both more human and more Christian than a scrupulous limitation of our prayers to what we might think permissible subjects of petition. God, without whom no sparrow falls, and who numbers the hairs of our heads, is not indifferent to anything which concerns His children, and they may talk with Him about everything with all the freedom of children in their Father’s house.
Our prayer has to do with everything that we experience. We can believe ourselves to be Christian, in the full sense of the term, only when everything that moves and stirs us is laid by us before God in prayer. When it thus extends to everything that our life actually embraces, it brings everything into connection with the relation in which we stand to God in Christ. [Note: J. Kaftan, Die Christliche Lehre vom Gebet, 4.]
Once, when Dr. Moody Stuart happened to be in Huntly, Duncan Matheson took him to see some earnest Christian people. He visited, among others, an aged woman who was in her own way a “character”. Before leaving, he prayed with her; and she, as her habit was, emphasized each petition with some ejaculatory comment or note of assent. Towards the close of his prayer he asked that God, according to His promise, would give her “all things”. The old lady interjected, “All things, na, that wad be a lift”. The mingling of comfort and dubiety which was revealed by the quaint interpolation is characteristic of the faith of very many of the children of God when they are brought face to face with some great promise addressed to believing prayer: “And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive”; “Therefore I say unto you, all things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them”; “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you”. [Note: D. M. McIntyre, The Hidden Life of Prayer, 114.]
2. It is especially to be remembered that nothing is too trivial to bring to God’s notice. Things seemingly trivial have relationships which elevate them into positions of supreme moment. And becoming of interest to us, they become of interest to Him who loves us. The smoothing of a pillow is in itself a trifle; but to the invalid it may mean refreshing repose, and the loving watcher will on that account perform this little act of kindness. And thus many movements of our lives are to all appearance as trifling as the smoothing of a pillow, but they may in reality have a far-reaching significance, and thus become important to God and to us. We may not therefore hesitate to lay before God, and to put into His hand, anything which concerns us. He invites this confidence. And we can conclude that we trust Him only when in this filial spirit we pour out our hearts before Him.
It has recently been asserted by a popular writer that all sensible men will soon see the absurdity “of airing their egotisms in God’s presence through prayer, or of any such quiet personal intimacy”. Jesus Christ, on the contrary, asserts that God is concerned with the welfare even of the lower creation: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father”. Much more is He concerned with the details of human life: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered”. If that be so, the “trivial round” of our life is not trivial in the eyes of God, who—albeit He “inhabiteth Eternity” — “yet humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in earth”. Thus it would seem that the natural and reverent way of approaching God is not to settle beforehand the limit of His power, not to conclude that He can grant only this or that request, but to take Christ at His word, to tell God everything, to come as a little child to a father. He sees further than we do; and if in our blindness we ask for that which will do more harm than good, the Father will give, not what we think we want, but what we really want—give what we should have asked for, could we have seen as far as He sees.
God nothing does, or suffers to be done
But thou would’st do thyself, could’st thou but see
The end of all events as well as He.
Henry Clay Trumbull was a true prophet of God to our souls. He spoke forth the Infinite in the terms of our world, and the Eternal in the forms of our human life. God was near him, almost visible. His faith in prayer was one noble expression of his realization of the present power of his Father. Some years ago on a ferry boat, I met a gentleman who knew him and I told him that when I had last seen Dr. Trumbull, a fortnight before, he had spoken of him. “Oh, yes!” said my friend, “he was a great Christian, so real, so intense. He was at my home years ago, and we were talking about prayer. ‘Why, Trumbull,’ I said, ‘you don’t mean to say that if you lost a lead pencil you would pray about it, and ask God to help you find it.’ ‘Of course I would; of course I would!’ was his instant and excited reply.” How easy it is to reproduce the very sound of the voice, to see the flash of the eye and the trembling gesture of the hand. Of course he would. Was not his faith a real thing? Like the Saviour he put his doctrine strongly by taking an extreme illustration to embody his principle, but the principle was fundamental. He would trust God in everything. He did trust Him. And the Father honoured the trust of His child. [Note: R. E. Speer, Men Who Were Found Faithful, 168.]
II.
1. There is one thought that must always be present when we ask what things we may pray for. All prayer must be in harmony with the will of God. This will be considered more fully when we come to the conditions of prayer. But it must be touched upon here and now. “Prayer is pleasing to God, that is, the prayer which is undertaken in the proper manner. He therefore, that desires to be heard should pray wisely, fervently, humbly, faithfully, perseveringly, confidently. Let him pray wisely, by which I mean, let him pray for those things which minister to the Divine glory and the salvation of his neighbours. God is all-powerful—therefore do not in your prayers prescribe how He shall act; He is all-wise—therefore do not determine when. Do not let your prayers break forth heedlessly, but let them follow the guidance of faith, remembering that faith has steady regard to the Divine word. Those things, therefore, which God promises absolutely in His word, those pray for absolutely. Those which He promises conditionally—for example, temporal things—those on the same principle pray for conditionally. Those things which He does not promise at all, those also you will not pray for at all God often grants in His anger what His goodness would deny. Therefore, follow Christ, who fully conforms His will to the will of God.” So wrote the Lutheran Gerhard in his Holy Meditations. What he means is that prayer is a form of intelligent correspondence with the revealed will of God. This is the thought we are to have continually in mind when we attempt to answer the often repeated question—What ought we to pray for?
Our prayers must be sincere; they must always be the expression of our real mind and heart. Whatever really moves and stirs a Christian, he should also bring before God’s throne in prayer. What is of importance is not whether it is great or small, but only the relation in which it stands to our spiritual life. God will be entreated for earthly gifts and blessings. It is true, as Luther says, that He gives them to us and to all men, without our praying for them. Our Father in heaven knows what we need. But without prayer we do not receive them in the right manner. In regard to such things there are only two courses open to men: either prayer or over-anxiety and pride; and our Lord’s injunction is, that we should choose the former and leave the latter to the children of the world. But in praying for earthly things, we must never forget the subordination of such prayer to the prayer for the attainment of our highest aim, our eternal destiny, or that all our earthly circumstances are for the purpose of making us fit for the Kingdom of God. We pray, it may be, for the removal of obstructions that threaten us in our existence, in our calling; but, if we pray aright, there grows up out of this prayer the other prayer that such obstructions may not hinder us in the attainment of our highest aim; and, sure of being heard in this, we conclude our prayer by leaving the matter confidently in God’s hand. So also with all truly Christian prayer for earthly blessings. With such prayer the answer is immediately and directly connected; it is realized in the perfect trust that all things work together for good to them that love God. We do not have an absolute promise that God will hear our petitions for earthly things in an external manner. But we have the promise that He so deals with us that nothing will exceed our strength. Otherwise we should be hindered in the attainment of our eternal destiny. And that is never God’s will.
For we know in Christ that our highest aim is included in God’s eternal, loving will. And the course of the world must absolutely conform to the eternal, loving will of God.
“For the sake of clearness, let us take an illustration. From the same centre describe three concentric circles, and we have three zones. In the inner zone may be placed all those things which we know it is the will of God to give us, that is, all things necessary for our sanctification, all spiritual blessings. For them we can pray with the assurance that God wills to give them to us. In the outer zone we may put those things which we know are not according to God’s will, and for which it is therefore wrong to pray, such as the satisfaction of a vicious thirst for revenge, or success in some dishonest business venture. In the intermediate zone will be placed all that large class of temporal blessings which it may or may not be God’s will to give us, such as restoration to health, or success in our temporal affairs, or continuance of prosperity. For these we must pray with the reservation that we ask them only if they be for our ultimate good, and therefore in accordance with God’s will. In regard to the matter of prayer, then, we see that the condition is that it should be within the sphere of God’s will, that is, something God wills to give us because it is for our good.” [Note: A. G. Mortimer]
But with this proviso, and with the clause, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine,” added to our petitions, there can be no wrong in making our requests to God for every manner of blessing, material or other, and whether on our own behalf or on behalf of others. Here we may surely, with all confidence and with all reverence, invoke the analogy of human parenthood. No true earthly parent is offended or moved to impatience by his children expressing to him all their wants and wishes with perfect unreserve, even though his loving wisdom has anticipated their real needs, and will decide which of their desires may be granted; indeed the granting of those desires may depend to some extent upon the children’s attitude, upon the filial, trustful, affectionate disposition they exhibit. So in regard to the supplications we address to our Father in Heaven: we cannot think of His being moved by our mere importunity, or by the mechanical repetition of set phrases; but that the fulfilment of some wish of ours may be conditioned by our humility and confidence in expressing it presents no improbability. In any case, what is necessary on our part is that we should have faith, not only in God’s power to grant our petitions, but in His wisdom in granting or refusing them as may be most expedient for us. We ourselves can, within limits, fulfil most of our children’s requests; but a wise and loving parent will many a time say “No,” when his child may marvel at what to him must seem a mere arbitrary or even unkind refusal of an innocent desire. That hapless man of genius, the late John Davidson, condensed the truth into one illuminating phrase when he spoke of prayer rightly uttered as “submissive aspiration”; it would be difficult to devise another form of words equally brief yet containing so much of the essence of the matter.
Even petition for individual and material good is rational and morally justifiable if it be fused with the conscious submission of human to Divine will. A prayer of the Khonds, a tribe of Northern India, reads: “O Lord, we know not what is good for us. Thou knowest it. For it we pray.” This recalls the prayer of Fenelon: “Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of Thee; Thou only knowest what I need. . . . Behold my needs which I know not myself. . . . Smite or heal; depress me or raise me up; I adore all Thy purposes without knowing them; I am silent. . . . I yield myself to Thee. I would have no other desire than to accomplish Thy will. Teach me to pray. Pray Thyself in me.” So Socrates “prayed simply for things good, because the gods knew best what is good”; and St. Paul says that “we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us”. Frederick Robertson has said, “That prayer which does not succeed in moderating our wish, in changing the passionate desire into still submission; the anxious, tumultuous expectation into silent surrender, is no true prayer, and proves that we have not the spirit of true prayer. That life is most holy in which there is least of petition and desire, and most of waiting upon God; that in which petition most often passes into thanksgiving.” In prayer like this, petition itself has become acceptance. I do not merely surrender my will, I identify my will with God’s, if I pray. “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.” [Note: M. W. Calkins, in The Harvard Theological Review, 4: 496.]
2. If we are in doubt as to the will of God, there are two methods of coming to a decision. One is to take the Lord’s Prayer as our model, the other to trust to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
(1) Christian prayer is modelled on the Lord’s Prayer. “After this manner pray ye.” Any other manner must be a wrong manner. We can use what words we please, but unless we have the manner, the method, the spirit of this prayer, we fail to pray aright: and our requests cannot be granted in the form in which we make them.
Shortly before his death in 1870, Erskine of Linlathen received a letter from his old friend Carlyle, who, after referring to “our dim sojourn, now grown so lonely to us,” writes, “ ‘Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name, Thy will be done;’—what else can we say? The other night, in my sleepless tossings about, which were growing more and more miserable, these words, that brief and grand Prayer, came strangely into my mind, with an altogether new emphasis; as if written, and shining for me in mild pure splendour, on the black bosom of the Night there; when I, as it were, read them word by word,—with a sudden check to my imperfect wanderings, with a sudden softness of composure which was much unexpected. Not for perhaps thirty or forty years had I once formally repeated that Prayer; — nay, I never felt before how intensely the voice of Man’s soul it is; the inmost aspiration of all that is high and pious in poor Human Nature; right worthy to be recommended with an After this manner pray ye’.” [Note: Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, ii. 324.]
(2) We have the promise of the Spirit. “For we know not what we should pray for as we ought,” but we have the Spirit in our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Christ frequently taught them how to pray; He unveiled the character of God who hears prayer; He gave them large promises to prayer offered in His name. But the occasions were rare on which He mentioned definitely subjects for prayer. In the Lord’s Prayer, He had, indeed, under the seven comprehensive petitions, really included the desires and requests of His people, but the rest was left to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the growth of her sense of need in the Church from age to age.
While “nothing human holds good before God, and nothing but God himself can satisfy God,” still it is possible for man to pray and to pray aright. For this is the revelation: God does Himself, by his Holy Spirit, help us to come into sympathy with His purposes and to ask according to His will. For the Spirit helpeth our infirmities, and while we know not what to pray for as we ought, maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. [Note: Augustus Hopkins Strong, Miscellanies, ii. 383.]
Prayer is the breath of life, an effect of God’s spiritual breathing, which no man can perform aright without the Spirit’s breathing upon him. Therefore the Spirit is to be waited upon, for His breathings and holy fire, that the sacrifice may be living, and acceptable to the living God. [Note: Isaac Penington.]
The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed
If Thou the spirit give by which I pray:
My unassisted heart is barren clay,
That of its native self can nothing feed:
Of good and pious works Thou art the seed,
That quickens only where Thou say’st it may:
Unless Thou show to us Thine own true way
No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.
Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind
By which such virtue may in me be bred
That in Thy holy footsteps I may tread;
The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind,
That I may have the power to sing of Thee,
And sound Thy praises everlastingly. [Note: Wordsworth]
1. It is sometimes maintained that prayer can operate only in the spiritual region, and not in that which is subject to the reign of material law; or, in another way of putting it, that prayer should be only an offer to accept God’s will, as expressed in the laws of His universe, and never an attempt to influence the incidence of those laws. But this distinction between the spiritual and the material spheres is as unphilosophical as it is unchristian.
It is unphilosophical, for it rests on the assumption that the material order is a closed circle, with whose necessary sequence spirit cannot interfere; whereas all the higher philosophy from Aristotle onwards has maintained that the universe is ultimately spiritual, and that matter, as we call it, is a manifestation and an instrument of spirit; while we exemplify the fact every time that our free-will intervenes in the current of events, and should be regarded as insane if we pleaded the opposite opinion in such a practical place as a court of law.
But, besides being generally unphilosophical, the distinction in question is more particularly unchristian. For Christianity is the religion of the Incarnation, of Spirit manifest in matter, of the Word made flesh. And this, its central doctrine, pervades its every detail, and characterizes it through and through. Its foundation, as Christians believe, was accompanied by miracles, expressly designed to prove Christ’s mastery of material things. Its teaching was conveyed through parables that gave spiritual significance to all the material objects of the ordinary world. Its practice is sustained by sacraments, wherein material elements are consecrated to the assistance of our spiritual life, while it bids us venerate and discipline our bodies as being the temples of the Holy Ghost. Its whole purport, in a word, is to realize the truth, which philosophy and commonsense alike have recognized, that the material machinery of the world is subordinate to a spiritual purpose, in whose interest it is meant to be controlled. And it is in natural accordance with this that we are enjoined by Christ to pray for even so material a thing as our daily bread: while, at the same time, the fact of its being made an object of prayer, as well as the limitation itself of the petition, reminds us that our daily bread, as well as every other earthly blessing which the phrase may be interpreted to cover, is not to be wasted in selfish enjoyment, but used to sustain and increase the energies that minister, through the body, to our spiritual life. All temporal blessings, therefore, which, under this condition, may be legitimate objects of desire are also legitimate objects of prayer. And though personal petitions of this kind may diminish, in proportion as our life becomes more spiritual, the confidence with which they are offered will increase.
The soul’s true intercourse with God in either sphere must not be forgotten, nor the true harmony between His methods in either, nor the supreme end to which all prayer conduces, be ignored. It must have been through ignorance of these principles that, in the course of the controversy in 1872-73, an attempt was made to limit the action of prayer to the spiritual world only. Professor Tyndall did not, he said, contend for the extinction, but only for the displacement, of prayer, and in a subsequent paper on “The Function of Prayer in the Economy of the Universe,” the Rev. W. Knight, in excluding prayer from the physical order, pleaded for its place and efficacy in the spiritual region. But, in reality, the intervention of a living, personal God in the world of spirit cannot, for long, be consistently maintained if, on the hypothesis that it is inconsistent with the reign of law, it be rejected in the world of matter. That such a distinction is illogical has been shown, in some forcible sentences, by the Duke of Argyll in his Reign of Law: “Whatever difficulties there may be in reconciling the ideas of Law and of Volition are difficulties which apply equally to the worlds of matter and of mind. The mind is as much subject to law as the body is. The reign of law is over all, and if its dominion be really incompatible with the agency of volition, human and Divine, then the mind is as inaccessible to that agency as material things.” “It is hard,” adds Professor Jellett, “to see how the principle here laid down can be disputed. When we ask God to grant us a spiritual benefit, we ask Him to intervene in the sequence of mental phenomena. If a change in the sequence of phenomena produced by the intervention of the Divine Will be a violation of law, we are asking for a violation of law; and this violation is equally unreal whether the interrupted sequence be in the world of matter or the world of mind.” [Note: A. J. Worlledge, Prayer, 44.]
It is arbitrary to confine petitionary prayer to religious objects or even to ethical; the petition for bread in the Lord’s Prayer is clearly opposed to this super-spirituality. [Note: M. Miller, Berechtigung and Zuversichtlichkeit des Bittgebets, 7.]
It is worth noticing that almost every prayer addressed to our Lord in the Gospels is for some temporal blessing—usually for recovery from sickness, or some bodily infirmity. God would surely teach us that He desires that we should look to Him in all our necessities—for those things which are necessary as well for the body as the soul Whatever it is lawful to desire, it is lawful to pray for; and as long as we pray in faith we cannot be wrong, though of course we may be mistaken in what is for our real welfare. Faith includes submission to the will of God, and teaches us to trust “Our Father” as knowing better than we can know what things are really for our temporal and eternal good. “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” [Note: R. E. Hutton, The Crown of Christ, 2: 138.]
2. But we have to keep in mind that Christ has taught us that we are to “seek first” the things which are spiritual and eternal. And so far from our losing by following this order, He has assured us that the lower good will be “added” to those who make it their main concern to win the higher. The request for “daily bread” is a most legitimate request; but, if we are to pray “the Lord’s Prayer,” we must not begin with it.
It is probable that as the Christian character advances to maturity, and the vision of God becomes clearer, the disposition to seek for temporal good will become less and less eager if it does not wholly vanish away. For in His Presence the things which are often coveted so earnestly are apt to wear quite an altered aspect. If He speaks, and we hear Him, then “grief becomes a solemn scorn of ills”. We glory even in infirmity, having the assurance of His grace. If Christ were to come to us at our prayers we could scarcely think of earthly advantages, unless, indeed, we ventured so far for some brother in distress. For ourselves, at such a time, what could we ask for but forgiveness, holiness, a heart to love Him better, a will more perfectly consecrated to His service? And when prayer is prayer indeed, it is as though Christ were there by our side, and we had come into the Holy of Holies. And even when no vivid sense of His nearness is granted to us, yet reflecting on the uses of adversity in sweetening and refining the souls of them that suffer, and observing how hard and unlovely the characters of those who have their portion in this world often are, we may well find that our lips falter as we begin to speak of our desire for those things which nature craves but which would appear to be of no great service to such as would have their place in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Observe the order of progress in the petitions contained in the Bible. More or less throughout the Old Testament, but especially throughout the earlier period, they gather round things material. Food, drink, and raiment—after these things the Gentiles seek, said Jesus; and the same might have been said of the average Hebrew. A perusal of Deuteronomy 28 or Leviticus 26 illustrates the things which even to the later Hebrews constituted a blessing and a curse, and there is much truth in Bacon’s aphorism that “prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament”. “The dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine” —these words of an ancient blessing find an echo very late in Hebrew religion. “Thy great goodness,” to which Ezra refers in his prayer of confession, was represented by “a fat land, houses full of all good things, cisterns hewn out, vineyards, and olive-yards, and fruit trees in abundance.”
Material and external blessings are the principal subjects of prayer in the Psalms. Account must be taken, in considering this matter, of changes which have taken place in the meaning of words by the legitimate spiritualizing effect of Christian use. “Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation” (Psa_35:3) is a good instance of how a prayer for temporal deliverance has come to acquire the appearance of being a prayer for spiritual blessing. But although the Psalms are far more largely occupied with temporal and material than with spiritual needs, yet there are distinctly spiritual topics of prayer which fill a considerable place in them. These are: (a) communion with God, prayer for the intercourse of prayer, as in Psalms 63; (b) forgiveness of sins, besought with the greatest earnestness in Psalms 51 for its own sake, but more frequently taking the form of prayer for that deliverance from suffering and chastisement which was held to mark the forgiveness of sin; (c) Psalms 119 stands on a different footing. It contains much prayer for a knowledge of God’s will. The prayer for “quickening” seems distinctly to have a spiritual sense. The development of prayer in a spiritual direction has been carried some way in the Psalms, and prayer for external blessings has been cast in a form which will lend itself afterwards to spiritual interpretation.
In the New Testament, prayer is, as we might expect, predominantly for things spiritual. Doubtless material things could not be altogether ignored or forgotten; had not the Master Himself taught His disciples to pray for bread, and had He not made upon them the impression that any request they made in His name would be answered? But requests by such men and in such a name would be overwhelmingly for things spiritual. Those whose ambition was to “abide in Him,” would not be sorely troubled by ambitions of a worldly kind.
I often think that the progress of religion is shown nowhere with more clearness than in the development that has slowly taken place in the character of prayer. So much of prayer has been on the quid pro quo principle. Men have tried to bargain with God, to talk Him round to their view of the case; to get Him to do something for them that He must not do for others, so that prayer has been really the earnest pleading that our will may be done, and not the Divine will. “O Allah, give me a hundred sequins,” the Polynesian idolaters prayed, and whipped their unpropitious gods. But how different was the prayer on the lips or in the life of our blessed Lord? [Note: George Henry Russell Garcia, 205.]
Such was the society in which I was living at that age when a youth is so easily swayed; and I was studying books which taught eloquence, in which I desired to excel, seeking by means of the satisfaction of human vanity an end that was itself evil and vain, when in the usual course of reading I came to a book of one Cicero, whose eloquence, though not his character, is almost universally admired. This book of his is called the Hortensius, and contains an exhortation to the study of philosophy. That book changed my whole attitude, changed the prayers which I offered to Thee, and made all my desires and aspirations different from what they had been. All at once every hope that was set on vanity seemed worthless, and I desired with an incredible intensity of emotion the immortality with which philosophy is concerned, and I began to rise up that I might return unto Thee. [Note: St. Augustine, Confessions, 24.]
When our persuasion of the guidance and the goodness of God is firm and clear, prayer becomes a true pleasure and strength of soul. If our vision of God is unclouded, we are instant in prayer, and pray without ceasing. The fully believing spirit rejoices to be in perpetual communion with God. In work and worship, in joy and grief, in giving and doing, in hours of triumph and hours of trial, the surely persuaded soul casts itself upon God with the confidence of undoubting love. When God is the greatest of all realities to the soul, prayer is the sweetest of all rejoicings. The clear consciousness and firm conviction of God compel frequency and gladness in prayer. [Note: J. W. Diggle, Sermons for Daily Life, 1.]
3. Last of all, let us not forget that prayer for material things may be denied because to grant it would be to the hindrance of spiritual things. Jeremiah, beyond almost any other prophet, was of a warm emotional nature, keenly alive to all that was going on around him; and with this he had a prophet’s insight into the needs of his country, and all a prophet’s readiness to respond to the touch of the Divine hand. A grievous drought had fallen upon Judah, so that “the gates thereof languish; they are black upon the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up”. The prophet, interpreting this as a sign of Jehovah’s anger, intercedes on behalf of his people: “O thou hope of Israel, . . . why shouldest thou be as a man astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save? Yet thou, 0 Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not.” But Jehovah replies that He will accept no intercession for the people. “Pray not for this people for their good. . . . I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.” Again the prophet pleads in more beseeching tones, and again his intercession is rejected, even more decisively than before: “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people. . . . I am weary with repenting . . . I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, . . . and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the Lord.” It is one of the most pathetic situations in the Bible. The passionate, tender-hearted prophet wrestling in prayer for his people, and his prayer not granted! Here we come upon a profound piece of teaching. We must not expect God to give physical deliverance when we pray for it. There is a higher interest at stake, a higher law which must be obeyed. The prophet prayed for Israel’s deliverance, but Jehovah revealed that His holy purpose must be accomplished not by deliverance but by punishment; the supreme spiritual law required that the doom of Jerusalem should not be deferred.
The same profound lesson we learn in the Garden of Gethsemane. Even to the Well-beloved the Father denied the passing of the bitter cup; He must drink it; so supreme are spiritual over physical things. We can pray for the latter only conditionally: “Father, if it be possible: not my will, but thine, be done”.
As Jesus moved about, and men drew near to Him, nine times out of ten the things they cried for could scarcely be called spiritual at all. They prayed for sight. They prayed for physical power. They prayed that a son or daughter might be healed. They prayed in the wild uproar of the storm, “Lord save us from this tempest, or we perish”. And what I say is that for one like Jesus, to whom the spiritual overshadowed everything, such ceaseless praying for the physical and temporal must have made heavier the cross He bore. It deepens the wonder of His patience to remember that. It sheds a light on His infinite compassion. Fain would He have been asked for deeper things, yet He never wearied in bestowing these things. [Note: G. H. Morrison, The Afterglow of God, 16.]
