I ASKED a group of Nebraska children to whom I was talking, how many of them prayed; and nearly all held up their hands. Then I asked them how many expected their prayers to be answered; and only about half of them held up their hands.
I fear that illustrates the attitude of many good people toward answers to prayer. And yet one thing is certain; nothing is taught more clearly in the Bible than that there is such a thing as answer to prayer.
ARE THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE REVERSED?
Some folks say that if prayers are answered, the laws of the universe have to be reversed. That is what they told Langley, in Washington, D. C., when he was building his flying machine and insisted that soon men would have power to fly. They laughed at him, and said the law of gravitation forbade it. Langley died before he was able to overcome the law of gravitation. But the Wright brothers discovered how to adjust themselves to both the law of flying and the law of gravitation; and now men do fly, and the law of gravitation is not smashed.
Likewise when one discovers the law of prayer, none of God's great laws have to be smashed in order to enable Him to answer.
In the Smithsonian Institution in Washington382there is a marvelous instrument that can measure the heat of a candle five miles away. If it is within the power of man to construct such an instrument, who can doubt that there is an instrument up in heaven that can correctly register the desires of my heart?
TELEGRAPHING MAY ILLUSTRATE IT
But you may say, “How can God hear me?” A few weeks ago, I was over in San Francisco, on the very day that Alexander Graham Bell, the man who a generation ago invented the telephone, and Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States, in Washington, D. C., talked over the first long distance line across the continent. And yet I can remember when men laughed because some lunatic had actually predicted that people miles away would be able to carry on conversation.
Recently, while in San Diego, California, I saw the great government wireless station from which are sent across the Pacific Ocean messages.
Do you mean to say that although Alexander Graham Bell could accomplish this feat, yet God, who made Alexander Graham Bell, could not do a thing as much more wonderful as to hear my prayers?
Only recently, while in San Diego, California, I saw the great government wireless station from which are sent across the Pacific Ocean messages that can be distinctly registered in Japan. If a man can send a wave of sound across the Pacific Ocean, is it not within the power of God, who made man, to hear the sound of my voice?
I believe in prayer, not because of all these illustrations, but because my Bible says, “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and . . . pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Matt. 6: 6.
And what is more, I have tried it out; and when the good Lord does not give me what I ask for, I know that it would not be best for me to have it. I know I can trust Him, because “like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.” Ps. 103: 13.
