p. 45 | PRAYER | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 29, 1880

PRAYER.

PRAYER implies the attention of the Almighty to our petitions, and that he has power to grant them. We cannot pray to a machine; no more can we pray to a god who is shut out of the universe and restrained from any direct participation in human affairs by pre-established laws. A god who is entombed in creation, who has no existence separate from his works,—the god of Pantheism—is not a god who can hear and answer prayer. Nor can we pray intelligently to an unknowable god. If God is only a name for an unknown force, or for the moral order of the universe, prayer becomes irrational and impossible, for "of what avail is it for any man to pray if God has given over the line of his life to the control of law, which has no love, no sympathy, and no power to hear and answer, when he prays?" Therefore, the possibility of intelligent and availing prayer implies that God is a personal, extra-mundane, and yet omnipresent being, independent of the world, almighty in power, having complete control over all the operations of nature.

Moreover, prayer implies the loving interest and care of God, that he has the disposition and the ability to do for us that which is best. For he is our Father, whose love for us is infinitely greater than that of earthly parents for their children. And if men, who are evil, know how to give good gifts unto their children, how much more shall our Heavenly Father, who is infinitely wise and good and loving give the best things to them that trust him? The very word Father, with which every petition begins, carries in it the ample assurance that he will always do that which is best for us.

This assurance that God's will is best for us, and that he will certainly do it, is an essential element of all availing prayer. It is indispensable to faith. No man can have entire faith in God, can trust him with all his heart, who cannot say with perfect acquiescence, "Thy will be done." For this language of submission is also the language of trust, of filial confidence, which says: "I do not know what is best for me, but God, my Father, does, and though his will may be painful for me to do or endure, yet I know it is for my good, therefore I will trust him; "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." "Not as I wish, but as thou wilt." Manifestly, if a man does not have enough confidence in the wisdom, goodness, and power of God to believe that his will is best, that he can work his will in all things, he cannot trust him, and therefore cannot pray with faith.

It follows that whenever we pray, and for whatever we pray, we must, if we would receive the highest benefit from our prayers, be able to say from the heart: "Thy will be done." This is the essential condition of effectual prayer. And wisely so. It would be a singular theory of prayer to say that God will answer an imperious or unsubmissive request, in which a soul says: "God, give me this desire—spare the life of my loved one—I must have it; I cannot be resigned without it." How much more effectual a prayer like that of the Saviour: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." "And there appeared an angel unto him from Heaven, strengthening him." If you say sincere concerning your most cherished desire: "Not my will, but thine be done," you are sure to receive, if not the thing you ask, that which is better—the ineffably precious ministrations of the Holy Spirit, clearly showing you that God's will is better than your wish, and giving you strength to cheerfully do or suffer that will.

"That prayer which does not succeed in moderating our wish, in changing the passionate desire into still submission, the anxious, tumultuous expectation into silent surrender, is no true prayer, and proves that we have not the spirit of true prayer."