Prayer by W. A. SPICER

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Oct 26, 1905

Prayer

By W. A. SPICER

Our Strongholds—No. 2

Prayer

W. A. SPICER

Men of God in the Bible story prayed because communion with God was a necessity of spiritual existence. The view we get of their lives shows conflict and trial. Sin was a reality. They knew that only by God’s help could they keep the way of righteousness. “Then they cried unto the Lord.” The psalmist said, “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.” And of sinners in the depth, or of saints in trial and distress, it is written that “He heard them.”

Life is the same conflict with us, and we need to form the habit of prayer. It is easy to be busy doing things—to make

activity the sum of Christian living. Yet activity means nothing without the presence of the Holy Spirit. There is the power which vitalizes and makes effective human effort, and it comes only to those who daily “seek” and “ask.” Let every young convert study that chapter, “The Privilege of Prayer,” in “Steps to Christ.”

Learn the blessedness of praying aloud in private at the very beginning of the Christian walk. Some of us missed much for years by whispering our prayers or thinking them. The Lord can hear the faintest whisper, it is true, and read the thought of the heart; but there is very much in letting the ears hear one’s own voice pleading the soul’s needs and speaking the praise and devotion of the heart to the Lord Jesus.

Too often prayer is made to deal with far-off experiences, and is devoted to spiritual commonplaces. The Lord would have us spread before him the actual needs of the daily life. Take to him the trials and the lessons of the day. Go where one will, he will find that discouragement and backsliding are associated with neglect of prayer. Talk with God aloud concerning the experiences that tend to discourage, and deliverance will come.

We are to become acquainted with God. When we pray, we talk with him. When we read his Word, he talks to us. And prayer on earth means something in heaven. In the vision of the sanctuary, in Revelation 8, John saw the prayers of God’s children on earth ascending before the throne. They came up, not in their imperfection, but mingled with the incense, which represents the merits and the intercession of Jesus. He prays for us. Rom. 8:34. And the Spirit “maketh intercession for us.” Verse 26. There is praying for us in heaven. Surely, then, we ourselves, in the midst of the conflict on earth, may have all courage to pray.

We all know this, that the more we seek God in prayer, the greater the blessedness of prayer and the fresher and stronger the experience. As Jesus, our Model, found strength for his daily work only as he sought the Father for renewal of his soul, so we shall find in prayer the only means of keeping our souls in confidence, unwavering to the end. Impatience, irritability, hardness of heart, discouragement, and all that would destroy our peace of mind and spoil the life are vanquished by communion with God. Archbishop Trench wrote a true word beautifully when he said of prayer:—

“Lord, what a change within us one short hour Spent in thy presence will prevail to make; What heavy burdens from our bosom take, What parched grounds refresh as with a shower! We kneel, and all around us seems to lower; We rise, and all the distant and the near Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear; We kneel, how weak! We rise, how full of power! Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong, Or others, that we are not always strong; That we are ever overborne with care, That we should ever weak or heartless be, Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, And joy and strength and courage are with thee?”

Washington, D. C.