Make It Yours

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 11, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 31.

SURELY if the great warrior-king of Israel needed to pray this prayer,— “Show me Thy ways, O Jehovah, Teach me Thy paths, Guide me in Thy truth, and teach me,” we, in this uncertain, doubtful, and degenerate age, would do well to repeat often from the heart the inspired petition.

It is a prayer inspired by the Spirit of God to meet the needs of men. It is therefore a prayer to be answered to every soul who will pray it with a true heart. There are many longing for the right way. There are many more who are astray, and willingly astray. They are lost in the great, dark forest of the world’s pleasures, pursuits, madness, sin, and crime,—plucking its poisoned flowers, quaffing its intoxicating draughts, despairing over its delusive phantoms, which lure but to deceive, forgetful of God and good. Yet God does not leave them. He even permits them to reap the disappointing fruit of sin that they may turn from it. His messengers call, so often unheeded, to deaf and dull ears, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” And God, by the very troubles and pains and woes of earth, calls its children to come to Him and find rest.

Would you turn from Pleasure’s paths, sinner? Would you know the ways of the Lord, wretched one? Pray, then, the inspired prayer, “Show me Thy ways, O Lord; teach me Thy paths.”

Ask with a true heart. God does not mock His children. His promises are Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus. He holds out no phantom hopes. He cheats us not by illusion or counterfeit. He brings us the real. He presents the goal of our hopes, “a better and an enduring substance.” He asks us not to follow “cunningly devised fables.” No, God does not mock us; let us not attempt to mock God. If we come with a prayer-lie upon our lips, we shall be deceived; for we can not deceive God. And so the Lord does not bid us not to deceive Him, but, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Gal. 6:7. It is as absolutely impossible for us to find the true way or to get true returns from the sowing of a prayer-lie as it is to get wheat from the sowing of cockle. Let the prayer be prayed in truth with all the heart.

If we ask with all our heart for God to show us His ways, it means that we give up our own ways. No true heart asks to see God’s ways and to learn God’s paths that he may compare them with his own, like a piece of machinery he takes on trial. He can not see them in that way. We can only know God’s paths by walking in them, even as we can only know food by eating it. Therefore he who truly asks to be shown and taught the ways and paths of God, asks that he may walk in God’s ways. He chooses God’s ways in preference to his own. He prefers the Lord’s paths to all other paths.

“Show me Thy ways, O Jehovah, Teach me Thy paths. Lead me IN THY TRUTH, and teach me; For Thou art the God of my salvation.” Ps. 25: 4, 5.

Such a prayer, by whomever offered with all the heart, will be heard and answered of God. He who offers it may be in the jungles of Asia, the deserts of Africa, the prisons of Siberia, the slums and dives of our great cities, the streets or marts of sin, anywhere or anywhen; God will hear. Let him plead God’s mercy; for His ways are merciful. Let him say, as God has taught us by His Spirit:

“REMEMBER, O Jehovah, THY tender mercies and THY loving-kindnesses; For they have been ever of old. Remember NOT the SINS of MY youth, nor MY TRANSGRESSIONS; According to Thy loving-kindness remember Thou me, For Thy goodness’ sake, O Jehovah.” Verses 6, 7.

And He will answer, for He taught us the prayer. More than that, He says He will. Thus the blessed psalm continues:

“Good and upright is Jehovah, Therefore WILL HE INSTRUCT sinners in the way. The meek will He GUIDE in justice; And the meek will He TEACH HIS WAY.” Verses 8, 9.

And all can be meek. All can yield their selfish, disappointed ways. All that God asks is humility, meekness, teachableness, sincerity. And he who comes in such a Spirit will find that

“All the paths of Jehovah are loving-kindness and truth, unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.” Verse 10.

But one says, “I can not keep His covenant, I can not keep His testimonies, His law.” Yes, you can if you desire so to do above all things else, and will yield yourself wholly to do it. Listen: Every precept of God is an enabling act to him who yields to do it. There is power in the word to accomplish its command. Only let the living word into the heart. Let Christ come in through His word with His own life, and you will find that all God’s ways are “ways of pleasantness,” and all His paths are “paths of peace.”