PRIVATE PRAYER, OR PRAYER FOR ONESELF

PRIVATE PRAYER, OR PRAYER FOR ONESELF

Here, the greater our confidence in God, the more fully and minutely do we make known all our requests. The more I am sensible of my inability to do anything, and am at the same time assured that He cares for me, the more do I submit everything to Him. And as this is truly done there is a very marked effect. The more I feel my powerlessness about things, the more distracted I should be; but when I make known to God all my requests, a very marked effect ensues: The peace of God which passes all understanding keeps my heart and mind through Christ Jesus. Thus, as I have already stated, there is an unspeakable gain in drawing near to God, and consciously making Him the depositary of one’s cares — “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you”. It is because He cares for us; and when there is a full sense in the heart of this, with the sense also of my own inability, I rejoice in the access to Him with which I am favoured. Every soil on my conscience, and every assertion of my own powers, hinders me from this unqualified unburdening of my anxieties to God. When there is a soil, I hesitate to draw near; and when there has been an assertion of my own strength, I am necessarily less confiding in Him. It is, however, to be remembered that the cry of the needy one is heard, as we are taught in Psalm 107, that however far away from the Lord the believer may be, yet, when he cries, he is heard.

^[p. 247] The turning to God in the hour of distress is rewarded. Many a child of God, pursuing his own pleasure, and quite outside the testimony of God at the time, has found help from Him when he prayed. Nay, things are given him, because he has asked them, as it were, to encourage him to ask more. But the believer out of communion, though he has been often heard and succoured, does not get near enough to God to acquire the peace of God that passes all understanding, keeping his heart and mind through Christ Jesus. If I have not peace with God, I cannot draw near unto Him so as to be assimilated to Him in state — that is to say, to get His peace — a truly wonderful effect; as it is said, “We ... beholding ... the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord”.

There is also in private prayer the Spirit helping our infirmities, because we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but He makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered; and He who searches the hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit, for He makes intercession according to God. In my private praying, I am assured that the Spirit of God dwelling in me, has such an interest in me, that He is interceding for me most earnestly, and God, who searches my heart, ascertains, not from my words, but from the Spirit’s intercession, what is really fit for me. It is an amazing thing that I am now, through grace, on such terms with the blessed God, that I can speak freely to Him, as it is said that every creature is sanctified by the word of God and prayer (1 Timothy 4: 5) — as it has been explained, (New Translation note) — God speaking to me, and I to Him — ‘one person speaking personally to another’ . Now it is as we are in the Spirit that we learn what the Spirit desires for us, and it is then, as I judge, that we obtain the knowledge of God’s will about anything we have on our hearts before Him. It is then we have faith for one thing, while we have it not for another. It is, as I might say, typified by the Urim and Thummim. I ^[p. 248] come to the Lord about everything; in every case I receive the peace of God; but, besides this, I can know that a certain thing is according to His will. “If we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us ... we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him”. I cannot know the Lord’s mind about anything until I go to Him. On my own or man’s level I am influenced by natural feelings, but it is only when I am shut in with Him, free from the strife of tongues, that I become impressed with His mind; not from something said to me, but from the effect of the association. Here I find the effect of the great supper, wisdom’s feast. I eat of her bread, and drink of her wine (see Proverbs 9: 1 - 5). I am in the sanctuary of God, nurtured there into fellowship with His mind. All my own wisdom vanishes in presence of His, and I am so influenced and transformed, that I see things according to His pleasure. Therefore, when praying about anything in particular, I not only come to Him, confiding in His love, but I also seek His opinion, as I might say, about it, I have to do with a greater than Solomon. Thus one may pray in faith, in simple confidence that He will hear, as the apostles when they returned to their own company (Acts 4: 23); or one may be corrected as to one’s desire, as Paul was, after he had prayed three times for the removal of the thorn in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12: 8, etc.). In the former case they were in the full current of the Lord’s mind; but in the latter, the Lord’s mind was not in accordance with the apostle’s desire; but as soon as he heard His mind, he was quite happy, and his own mind was in perfect concert with the Lord’s mind. I believe, when there is simple waiting on the Lord, one is influenced in simple conformity to His mind, without, as it were, feeling it. Moses so learned in the mount what suited God, that when he was called to take his place among Israel turned to idolatry, he knew how to act for God. Just as the bewildered psalmist sees everything the opposite way, when he is in the sanctuary,

^[p. 249] to what he did when outside it. I need not add more on private prayer, except that it is in private that God is learned; and it is from it one can only usefully enter on prayer for others, either in private or in public.