The Habit of Prayer by William T. Taylor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 23, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 17.

The Habit of Prayer.

By William T. Taylor

WHEN Hezekiah received the blasphemous letter from Rabshakeh, he knew what to do in his extremity, for he "spread it before the Lord." When Nehemiah was challenged by the Persian monarch for his sadness of countenance, and asked what his request was, he was not dismayed, for even with the king's cup in his hand, "he prayed unto the God of Heaven." When the mutinous band, at the sight of Ziklag's smouldering ruins, spake of stoning David, he was not appalled, for "he encouraged himself in the Lord his God," and said, "Bring me hither the ephod." When that "thorn in the flesh" afflicted Paul, he, too, had his resource in prayer, and "besought the Lord thrice" concerning it. And to take again the highest and holiest example, when the divine Lord himself was oppressed by that mysterious agony, which came upon him in Gethsemane, he cried, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."

Now, if we ask how it came that in these times of special emergency those great ones ran first to God, we shall find the answer in the fact that prayer had become the habit of their lives. They had always kept open the pathway to the mercy-seat; so in the hour of urgency they could find it easily, and run along it with speed. These were not exceptional instances in their histories, or, if exceptional at all, they were so not in the direction which their souls took, but only in the gravity and perplexity of the crisis. The men who never pray save when they are in peril, rarely if ever get at such times the full benefit of prayer. Their cry then resembles the shriek of a conquered enemy for quarter, and is not the entreaty of a loving son for help, and so it brings them little relief. But he who has been daily, or even more frequently, at the mercy-seat for years, and knows God as his friend, always receives grace sufficient for him, and strength according to his day.—Rev. W. T. Taylor, D. D.