PRAYER | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 19, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 38.

PRAYER.

NOTHING can detain or destroy a real prayer; its flight to the throne is swift and certain. God will not fail you, tho you fail yourself. Tho you faint, He fainteth not, neither is weary. Lift up your cry, and He will lift up His hand. Resort to your chamber, and it shall be to you none other than the gate of heaven. Tell your God your grief is heavy to you; it will be light enough to Him. Dilemmas will all be plain to His wisdom, and difficulties will vanish before His strength.

But remember always, prayer, like a ladder, has two ends. If angels are at the top end, there must be a human being at the foot; if the sunshine and the rain are sent to bring forward the fruitage of the year into the harvest, man must plow and sow, else there will be no harvest. God recognizes and uses human agencies in the carrying forward of His purposes. This has its illustration in an incident in the life of Hudson Taylor. He is a man of great faith in God, as well as a great missionary. When he first went to China, it was in a sailing vessel. Very close to the shore of a cannibal island the ship was becalmed, and it was slowly drifting shoreward, unable to go about, and the savages were eagerly anticipating a feast. The captain came to Mr. Taylor and besought him to pray for the help of God.

"I will," said Taylor, "provided you set your sail to catch the breeze."

The captain declined to make himself a laughing stock by unfurling sails in a dead calm.

Taylor said, "I will not undertake to pray for the vessel unless you will prepare the sails."

And it was done. The missionary retired to his stateroom to pray. While engaged in prayer, there was a knock at his door.

"Who is there?"

The captain's voice responded, "Are you still praying for wind?"

"Yes."

"Well," said the captain, "you'd better stop praying, for we have more wind than we can well manage."

And, sure enough, when but a hundred yards from shore, a strong wind struck the sails of the boat, so that the cannibals were cheated out of their human prey.

Sails are made to catch the wind. This part of the prayer, namely, the spreading of the sail, the sailors could do. It belonged to God to send the wind.

The application of all this is, if your prayer is for wind, be sure to first spread the sails.

One great lack of the church to-day is the power of prayer. The little company in that upper room in Jerusalem—men and women—rightly interpreted the Lord, when for ten days they tarried in prayer. How simple, direct, fervent, importunate that prayer was all the world knows! In this first Christian prayer-meeting we have in miniature the pivotal point of power for the church to-day and of every day.—Selected.