Prayer by A. W. Bartlett

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 7, 1909

Prayer

By A. W. Bartlett

DANIEL through prayer became a man of power. The secret of his lifelong, steadfast integrity is found in his habit of prayer. That was the discipline that made him what he was. “I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.” Daniel was well known in heaven, and greatly loved there. His constant intercourse with God had made him a man with whom heaven delighted to co-operate; and when Daniel began to pray, immediately the angels were at work to fulfil his heart’s desire.

It was in prayer that Jacob found power with God and with men. Prayer is the unfailing key to life’s problems. Look at the situation that confronted Ezra. Among the people returned from Babylon to rebuild the temple and city of Jerusalem, he found great numbers, even among the priests, who had fallen into the old fatal sin of marrying strange wives. The people were corrupted in their very homes, and how could they serve the Lord in purity? Yet who would venture to separate the men and their wives? An attempt to do so would bring Ezra into conflict with a stubborn and immovable multitude. In his hopeless perplexity, Ezra cried unto the Lord; and while he lay on his face, pleading for divine help, lo, the situation miraculously changed. When Ezra finished his prayer, he found about him the very ones who had taken the strange wives, all of them weeping sorely, confessing their sin, and anxious to retrace the wrong steps they had taken. It was prayer that had wrought the wonderful change. Prayer opens a way when there is none. Prayer makes it possible for the Omnipotent to work. Prayer makes weak and erring man a prince of heaven. — A. W. Bartlett.