Scripture is silent as to our posture in prayer, equally silent is it regarding the length to which our prayers should extend. This certainly is not a trivial point. A man may well suspect that there is something seriously wrong if his business at the throne of grace never requires more than a few brief moments. Yet you will seek through your Bible in vain for any direction as to how long you ought to continue in prayer. The reason is obvious. The length of our devotions—to speak especially of private prayer, for in social prayer other considerations must also be taken into account—ought to vary according to circumstances.
In some circumstances an hour may be quite too short; in others five minutes may be quite too long. And accordingly the Scripture does not hamper us with any unbending rule.
1. Biblical prayers are usually short—very much shorter than the average modern prayer. The very earnest prayer of Hezekiah for deliverance from Sennacherib could easily be spoken in less than a minute and a half; and the beautiful thanksgiving of David, in 1Ch_29:10-19, in between three and four minutes. But most of the prayers are much shorter than this; and the teaching and practice of Jesus go to confirm the impression that the ideal prayer is short.
Many public prayers are undoubtedly much too long. The so-called “long prayer” in Scotland has little Biblical sanction. In essence the long prayer is a heathen prayer: your Father knoweth what things ye have need of. [Note: J. E, McFadyen, The Prayers of the Bible, 208.]
Long prayers have always been unsuited to my temperament. The longer they are the harder I have always found it to derive anything of value from them. As a boy I was accustomed, and well able, to sleep as peacefully through the various groups of prayers at the services I had to attend, and yet wake exactly as the rest rose from their knees, as I have known some men able to take exactly forty winks after dinner and no more. I shall carry to my grave gratitude to D. L. Moody, who led me to stay and listen to his message by calling on his audience to sing a hymn while a long-winded brother should finish his prayer, the duration of which was actually at that moment driving me out of the building. In short, it seems to me that the more keenly I want a thing the briefer my form of petition, and the more directly I come to the point. [Note: W. T. Grenfell, Immortality, 58.]
(1) A short prayer will be more likely than a long one to concentrate itself upon the matter in hand. In the prayer of Hezekiah after a simple ascription of praise to Jehovah as the only God and the Creator, the king at once makes his request: “Hear the words of Sennacherib, wherewith he hath sent him to defy the living God. . . . Now save us, I beseech thee, out of his hand.”
(2) Besides securing concentration, brevity has the further advantage of keeping the speaker in mind of the elementary fact, which some speakers appear to forget, that prayer is an address to God. There are some who habitually speak of God in the third person. The motive might conceivably be one of reverence, though this was certainly not how Jesus taught His disciples to pray. In other cases, the habit may be unconsciously produced by the influence of preaching, in which God is spoken of, not to. Prayer addressed to God in the third person is, in reality, devout meditation—an excellent thing in its way, and not far removed from prayer, but not to be confused with it. Occasionally the third person appears in Hebrew prayer, but, except in the Psalms, it is seldom sustained for any length of time; its place is usually at once taken by a second person. Take the prayer of Jacob for example: “If God will be with me, and will keep me . . . of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee”. Or of Solomon: “Will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee.” Or of Daniel: “Jehovah our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth, and we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt.” Similarly, a man may refer to himself in the same sentence in the third person and in the first: “Thy servant doth know that I have sinned”.
How much prayer will really profit the life must depend on the character, the training, and the circumstances of individuals: we must not fall into the fallacy of supposing that because a certain amount of food or medicine will produce a certain effect, twice the amount of it will produce twice the effect. [Note: Hastings Rashdall, Christus in Ecclesia, 162.]
The depressing power of long prayers is vividly shown in the Life of John Hunt, the Fijian missionary. One day when steam was up in the morning in the steam-launch, and all was ready for taking up the anchor, the missionary said, “We must have morning worship before we start”. After reading a psalm he called upon a local preacher to lead in prayer, who prayed very earnestly for nearly twenty minutes. When he had risen from his knees the native engineer looked at the steam-gauge and said quietly, “That brother has prayed forty pounds pressure off the boiler. We shall have to make it up again before we start.” At the next weekly prayer-meeting all were warned against long prayers, which lowered the pressure of steam or decreased the spiritual power of united supplication. [Note: 2 J. Nettleton, John Hunt, 70.]
2. But the prayer may be too short. In the prayer of confession, for example, there must be time for thinking about our past life and our present, for that comparing of ourselves with the Divine ideal of human life which is called self-examination. And after self-examination must come resolution—definite resolution that we will try to avoid the sins of which we have been reminded, to do the things which we believe to be our duty, to cultivate the qualities of character and the habits of life which we know we must want. This also there must be in our prayers if there is to be reality in the petition, “Deliver us from evil”.
But if our prayers should be longer than they are apt to be, it is not so much that there may be more words, as that there may be more silence, more thought—time enough to realize that we are in the presence of God; time enough to think of our sins, that we may repent of them; of our temptations, that we may fight against them; of our neighbours, that we may serve them; of our duties, that we may do them.
Why is long-continued prayer so necessary? In order that we may warm our cold hearts, and soften our hard hearts. Be sure of this, in spite of all sophistry, that time and labour are needed to soften and warm the heart. The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. Our Father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask them. But we do not know: and never will know but by much prayer. This is experience, as all men of prayer will testify. [Note: Father John of the Greek Church, by A. Whyte, 64.]
In his Life of Cromwell, Lord Morley makes the following quotation from the Minutes of the Westminster Assembly of Divines: “After Dr. Twisse had begun with a brief prayer, Mr. Marshall prayed large two hours most divinely. After, Mr. Arrowsmith preached one hour, then a psalm, thereafter Mr. Vines prayed nearly two hours, and Mr. Palmer preached one hour, and Mr. Seaman prayed near two hours, then a psalm. After, Mr. Henderson brought them to a short, sweet conference of the heart confessed in the assembly, and other seen faults to be remedied, and the convenience to preach against all sects, especially baptists and antinomians.” These prodigies of physical endurance in spiritual exercises were common in those days. Johnston of Warriston, intending to spend an hour or two in prayer, once carried his devotions from six in the morning until he was amazed by the bells ringing at eight in the evening. [Note: John Morley, Oliver Cromwell, 163.]
At the time when we resided together in the same house at Perth, Dr. Duncan, one day when conducting family worship, prayed at very great length. Apprehensive that he had encroached on other duties, he thought that some sort of apology was necessary. With a look
of a child who has committed a fault, or rather with the same look which I have often seen him exhibit when he had needlessly lingered over some work to the inconvenience of others, after rising from his knees, he said, “I fear I have been very long today, but when one thinks he has got in, it is very difficult to get out again”. His prayers were frequently lengthy from an opposite cause, because he failed to find access. The great length of his sermons was usually due to both causes combined; the first part being prolonged, to use his own expression, by the difficulty of getting in, and the second by the equal difficulty of getting out. [Note: A. Moody Stuart, Recollections of the Late John Duncan, 194.]
