Editorial by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 16, 1913

Editorial

By Editor

A Year of Prayer

We have special days of prayer. We have recently passed through a week of prayer. Why not make the year 1913 a year of prayer? It is this spirit of constancy in Christian service which will bring success. But little is accomplished by spasmodic effort. We never heard of one becoming a great student by occasional study. Men do not succeed in affairs of worldly business by occasional and haphazard effort. Success comes as the result of earnest study, deep thinking, consecrated effort, earnest perseverance. We must apply these principles to our experience in religious things if we would obtain true success in Christian living.

If our needs were great at the time of the week of prayer in December, our needs are even greater to-day. Every month our responsibilities grow heavier. Continually there is coming against us the increasing power of satanic temptation. The forces of darkness are combining for the last great struggle with the forces of light. It is only as we take hold of a power outside of ourselves—the power that comes down from above—that we shall be able to stand our ground and fight the good fight of faith in the year spread out before us.

We need to pray much. Alone before God day by day we need to open our hearts to the searching scrutiny of his Holy Spirit and to receive from him the power which he is waiting to bestow upon us. The closeness of heaven’s touch comes in this earnest personal seeking. We may pray at public service, at the church prayer-meeting, and even at the family altar; but this is not enough. We need, as did Daniel of old, to go alone before God. If we are students or workers in our institutions, we can not depend alone upon the chapel service or the institutional family devotion for help. Many there are who depend upon these occasions for obtaining strength, and do not reach out after the greater power which will come only with personal seeking.

And this personal communion will not grow irksome. It will be an occasion where friend will commune with friend. Shut in with God, our ears may become attuned to heaven’s divine melodies, and we may hear the voice of Jesus addressing us in tenderest accents. To him we may unburden our inmost hearts. We may tell to him our grief, our sorrow, our every perplexity. It is in such communion as this that we gain the victory over personal sin, that we are brought to the consciousness of blessed acceptance. Let us cultivate these heart-to-heart talks with the Saviour, not occasionally, but daily and constantly. Let us make 1913 a year of prayer.