1. Prayer is founded upon knowledge. For prayer is speaking to God. And before we can speak to God, we must know God. How shall they call, an Apostle asks, on Him in whom they have not believed? Even the prayer of the heathen, so far as it is prayer, rests upon knowledge. If he speaks to an idol—if he asks aid of wood or stone, and stops there—then the nonentity of the object communicates itself to the worship: an idol is nothing in the world, and the prayer which treats it as an existence is itself nothing. But if the heathen man in any degree looks through the idol to a Being conceived of as distinct from it; if he so much as recognizes one of God’s real attributes, say even power, and addresses himself to that; then, in the same proportion, the lie of his idolatry becomes tinged and tinctured with a truth, and the cry, “O Baal, hear us,” may be the faint shadow and reflection of a better worship, because it also, even it, has this characteristic of the prayer we speak of, that it is founded (in some one point at least) upon knowledge. The man has an idea of God as a God of power. The prayer which knew nothing whatever of its object, or which called upon Him in no one respect as He is,would lack the first principle of all prayer, that it must have a basis of knowledge.
Are not Christian prayers often destitute of this first condition? To how many might the remonstrance of God now be addressed, “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself”; such in discernment, such in equity, such in veracity, or such in power! How many, even in prayer, never let God into their secrets; hope to elude His inspection, try to baffle His intuition! How many, even in prayer, expect of God a treatment neither just nor moral; ask of Him some compromise with evil, and a salvation not from but in their sins! How many, even in prayer, act the hypocrite and the dissembler, professing desires which they do not feel, and regrets and repentances which do not deceive even themselves! How many still expect to be heard for their much speaking, or to overbear the counsels of the Unchangeable by the vehemence of their importunity! All such prayers lack the requisite—the knowledge, the true knowledge, of Him to whom they are offered.
Before we can pray to God in a worthy manner, we must distinguish between the earthly and the heavenly Father. For although we speak of Him as a Father, which implies also the idea of personality, we do not mean that He is subject to personal caprice, or that He favours some of His children more than others, or that He will alter His universal laws in order to avert some calamity from us. All experience is against this, and we should destroy religion if we set up faith against universal experience. For either we should dwell in a sort of fools’ paradise, believing that our prayers had been answered when they had not been, because we had asked things which God could not grant (for they were at variance with the laws of the universe); or we should deny that there was a God altogether, because there was no such God as we had imagined. We must enlarge the horizon of our thoughts, and conceive of God once more as the infinite, the eternal Father, “with whom there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning” either in the physical or in the moral world; He of whom Christ says, “Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing? and yet your heavenly Father careth for them,” and “The very hairs of your head are all numbered”; and yet also the universal law, the mind or reason which contains all laws, as much above the world of which He is the Author as our souls are above our bodies; in whom all things live and move and have their being; who is the perfection of all things, and yet distinct from them. [Note: B. Jowett, Sermons on Faith and Doctrine, 252.]
There are five everyday words I want to bring before you to suggest something of who God is. They are familiar words, in constant use. The first is the word father. “Father” stands for strength, loving strength. A father plans, and provides for, and protects his loved ones. All fathers are not good. How man can extract the meaning out of a fine word, and use the word without its meaning! If you will think of the finest father ever you knew that anybody ever had; think of him now. Then remember this, God is a father, only He is so much finer a father than the finest father you ever knew of. And His will for your life—I am not talking about heaven, and our souls just now, though that is in it too—His will for your life down here these days is a father’s will for the one most dearly loved.
The second word is a finer word. Because woman is finer than man, and was made, and meant to be, this second word is finer than the first. I mean the word mother. If “father” stands for strength, “mother” stands for love—great, patient, tender, fine-fibred, enduring love. What would she not do for her loved one! Why, not unlikely she went down into the valley of the shadow that that life might come; and did it gladly with the love-light shining out of her eyes. Yes, and would do it again, that the life may remain if need be. That is a mother. You think of the finest mother ever you knew. And the suggestion brings the most hallowed memories to my own heart. Then remember this: God is a mother, only He is so much finer a mother than the finest mother you ever knew. The references in Scripture to God as a mother are numerous. “Under his wings” is a mother figure. The mother-bird gathers her brood up under her wings to feel the heat of her body, and for protection. The word “mother” is not used for God in the Bible. I think it is because with God “father” includes “mother”. It takes more of the human to tell the story than of the Divine. With God, all the strength of the father and all the fine love of the mother are combined in that word “father”. And His will for us is a mother’s will, a wise loving mother’s will for the darling of her heart.
The third word is friend. I do not mean to use it in the cheaper meaning. There is a certain kindliness of speech in which all acquaintances are called friends. Tupper says we call all men friends who are not known to be enemies. But I mean to use the word in its finer meaning. Here, a friend is one who loves you for your sake only, and steadfastly loves without regard to any return, even a return-love. The English have a saying that you may fill a church with your acquaintances, and not fill the pulpit seats with your friends. If you may have in your life one or two real friends you are very wealthy. If you will think for a moment of the very best friend you ever knew anybody of have. Then remember this: God is a friend. Only He is ever so much better a friend than the best friend you ever knew of. And the plan He has thought out for your life is such a one as that word would suggest.
The fourth word, I almost hesitate to use. The hesitancy is because the word and its relationship are spoken of lightly, frivolously, so much, even in good circles. I mean that rare fine word lover. Where two have met, and acquaintance has deepened into friendship, and that in turn into the holiest emotion, the highest friendship. What would he not do for her! She becomes the new human centre of his life. In a good sense he worships the ground she treads upon. And she—she will leave wealth for poverty if only so she may be with him in the coming days. She will leave home and friends, and go to the ends of the earth if his service calls him there. You think of the finest lover, man or woman, you ever knew anybody to have. Then remember this, and let me say it in soft, reverent tones, God is a lover—shall I say in yet more reverent voice, a sweetheart-lover. Only He is so much finer a lover than the finest lover you ever knew of. And His will, His plan for your life and mine—it hushes my heart to say it—is a lover’s plan for his only loved one.
The fifth word is this fourth word a degree finer spun, a stage farther on, and higher up, the word husband. This is the word on the man side for the most hallowed relationship of earth. This is the lover relationship in its perfection stage. With men “husband” is not always a finer word than “lover”. The more’s pity. How man does cheapen God’s plan of things; leaves out the kernel, and keeps only an empty shell sometimes. In God’s thought a husband is a lover plus. He is all that the finest lover is, and more; more tender, more eager, more thoughtful. Two lives are joined, and begin living one life. Two wills, yet one. Two persons, yet one purpose. Duality in unity. Will you call to mind for a moment the best husband you ever knew any woman to have? Then remember this, that God is a husband; only He is an infinitely more thoughtful husband than any you ever knew. And His will for your life is a husband’s will for his life’s friend and companion.
Now, please, do not you take one of these words, and say, “I like that”; and you another and say, “That conception of God appeals to me,” and you another. How we do whittle God down to our narrow conceptions! You must take all five words, and think the finest meaning into each, and then put them all together, to get a close up idea of God. He is all that, and more. [Note: S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Prayer, 177.]
2. One great defect in the common practice of prayer is that we do not sufficiently realize the personal character of the God whom we are addressing. Our prayer too often seems as if we had forgotten that we are persons praying to another Person. In some this arises from the common mode of talk in our day, which prefers to look on God as the one force pervading the universe, the great source of law, the essence and substance of all that is, rather than as a Person to whom love, and honour, and reverence are due. To such minds prayer is an act by which we put ourselves in harmony with universal law, or are filled with a sense of the greatness of the universe; it is not a petition addressed to Him “who heareth the prayer” and to whom “all flesh shall come”. This tendency, which in its extreme form is mere paganism or pantheism, subtly affects those who would be horrified to hear that they were not devout Christians; it makes their prayers less confiding, less loving, less reverent.
(1) The first essential, then, when we come to pray, is loving confidence, trust in Him to whom we pray, certainty that it is right for us to ask, and that in some way, unguessed perhaps by us, He will bring it to pass. If we would rightly conceive of God and of our relations to Him, we must take away from the human relation of parent and child all that is imperfect, temporary, limited; we must think of a child devoid of fear, perfectly straightforward, with complete confidence in his father’s love and power; we must think of a Father in whom is no possible variation in His wish to hear His children, who knows no weariness, no moments of indifference, whom no engrossing cares can hinder from listening with all-embracing love to the imperfect utterance of those whom He has made. Such is the God to whom we pray; such is the attitude which he means us to adopt towards Him.
Everything turns to me on the one foundation-fact that God is love—not only love toward all, but love toward me personally, F. W. C.! Then with that in mind I see that this Lover of my soul directs me to pray for all things, and it is abundantly clear that answered prayer encourages faith and personal relations in a way which broad principles only cannot effect. As the Spectator put it many years ago, much that would be positively bad for us if given without prayer is good if sent in answer. We feel (do we not ?) that all the evil of the world springs from mistrust of God. Nothing can recover us from this state of alienated unrest like answered prayer. Simon the Sorcerer wanted Holy-Ghost power, without asking God for it, to traffic on his own separate account. It would have been evil had he got it thus for money and not in answer to prayer. But no gift rivals the indwelling of the Giver Himself, and this can, as a rule, only be had in answer to prayer of a most earnest sort. [Note: F. W. Crossley, in Life by J. Rendel Harris, 171.]
(2) But this very attitude of mind, this perfect trust and certainty, involves another element of the child-like relation to the Father, the element of profound reverence. It is in most cases the great fault in our habits of prayer that they are not reverent.
We do not realize our relation to God, we do not approach Him with “reverence and godly fear,” we treat Him in our prayers, both private and public, as we should not venture to treat an earthly superior, an earthly father; we make our petitions with a carelessness which, in earthly things, would prove that they mattered very little to us.
Neglect nothing which can produce reverence. Pass not at once from the things of this world to prayer, but collect thyself. Think what thou art, what God is; thyself a child, and God thy Father; but also thyself dust and ashes, God a consuming fire, before whom angels hide their faces; thyself unholy, God holy; thyself a sinner, God thy Judge. And to this it will help, before you first pray, reverently to repeat your Belief, as confessing before God all He has wrought for you, and His own Majesty; or as they did of old, to think of the last four things, Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell; what thou hopest, everlasting life; what thou fearest, unceasing misery; what thou needest, God’s pardoning, preventing, assisting, perfecting grace, to save thee from the one, and along a strait and narrow path to guide thee to the other; nay further yet, God’s help, that thou mayest fear the one and hope for the other; for the very power to dread hell, or to hope for Heaven, is itself a great gift of God. [Note: E. B. Pusey, Occasional Sermons, 134]
