Doctrines of Prayer, Faith, and Peace by James Hastings: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer: 040. Practice

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Doctrines of Prayer, Faith, and Peace by James Hastings: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer: 040. Practice



TOPIC: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 040. Practice

Other Subjects in this Topic:

II.

Practice.

The mental or moral effort involved in concentration of the mind on spiritual things becomes easier by repetition, like any other habit, and, like any other habit, it is achieved, as a rule, gradually and after many a fall. For if prayer be in essence the voluntary turning of the soul to God, it needs no long or elaborate use of words. It may be, as the hymn says, only “the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear”. We can begin to acquire the art of prayer by learning, as it were, its alphabet. Scattered throughout the pages of the Bible and the Prayer-Book and the great classics of Christian devotion will be found many a brief but pregnant phrase or sentence on which our spirits can wing their way to the heart of the Father in heaven.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God;

And renew a right spirit within me.”

“Search me, O God, and know my heart:

Try me, and know my thoughts:

And see if there be any wicked way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.”

“God be merciful to me a sinner.”

“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”

“Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

And am no more worthy to be called thy son.”

“O send out thy light and thy truth;

That they may lead me.”

These brief sentences are typical of many at our disposal. Beginning with such as these, we can gradually extend the scope of our prayer until the habit becomes as essential to our spiritual life as food and exercise are to the life of the body. But not only is the art of prayer difficult of attainment conceived as an exercise of mind; much of the failure in prayer that we deplore is owing to absence of that moral condition out of which alone true prayer can spring. This condition is absolute sincerity, perfect truthfulness. For the things about which we pray to God are the most sacred intimacies of life—the sins we have committed and the uncommitted sins we have imagined; the self-created difficulties in the management of our own characters; our refusal to live up to the level of visions that have come to us in moments of insight and inspiration; the cowardice which has shrunk from opportunities of service to our fellow-men, or things more poignant still—the harsh words we have spoken and the unloving acts we have done to loved ones now beyond the reach of our penitence; the lack of a large and generous and forgiving spirit to those who are still with us; the inarticulate hungerings and thirstings for redemption from ourselves, from the bondage of evil, for reconciliation with God and the world. But to think truly and honestly about these things, to throw off the subtle disguises with which self-seeking would deceive us, demands an integrity and singleness of mind that are certainly not the work of a few brief, hurried moments. It is here that the sad contradiction which we see in some lives finds its explanation. The defender of prayer is pointed to persons brought up under the influence of religion, and finding an apparent pleasure in the exercises of religion, who yet remain hard, selfish, un-Christlike. What value can prayer have, it is triumphantly asked, when it has failed to renew those with whom it has been a custom for years? The answer is obvious. Prayer itself, in the case of these persons, has become degraded to the low level on which their lives are led. It is implicated in their general insincerity of character. Having never come face to face with their real selves their praying has not been real. It has been that most hateful of all things, shallow make believe.

Prayer is a trade to be learned. We must be apprentices and serve our time at it. Painstaking care, much thought, practice and labour are required to be a skilful tradesman in praying. Practice in this, as well as in all other trades, makes perfect. Toiling hands and hearts alone make proficients in this heavenly trade. [Note: E. M. Bounds, Purpose in Prayer, 48.]

It was a great musician who said that if he omitted his six-hours-a-day practice for one day he knew it, if he omitted it for two days the critics knew it, and if he omitted it for three days the public knew it.

The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, When nearer seen, and better known, Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.

So it is with prayer. It is, in its highest potency, the fruit of a long self-discipline and practice. [Note: Cuthbert MacEvoy, The Way of Prayer, 38.]