FIFTY-SIX SHORT SERMONS

FOR LAY READERS

I. PRAYER

Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.-ST. MATTHEW XXI. 22.

THIS

HIS is a tremendous promise, let us try to understand what it means. What is Prayer? Prayer is communion with God, a speaking to Him of what is in our hearts, and a listening to hear what He has to say to us. It is not, as some seem to think, a mere asking God to give us something that we want. Prayer includes confession of sin, thanksgiving for mercies received, praise of God for all that He is, and intercession for others.

Prayer is a tremendous power, but it is a mistake to think that anybody and everybody can use it without knowledge and preparation. The engine of a great steamship is a tremendous power, and can drive ten thousand tons of iron swiftly through the water, but supposing the engine is stopped, not every one can go into the engine room and utilise that great power. It takes knowledge and preparation before anything can be done. So with prayer. Three things are necessary to any real prayer. First, Thought. We must reflect who we are that are speaking, and Who He is to Whom we are speaking. A good man once said that if he had only five minutes left in which to pray, he would devote three of them to meditating on this one point. He was probably right, yet thought by itself is stationary; it does not help us on. We need two other

things to bring us into action. The first is Feeling. The thought of ourselves, our unworthiness, our helplessness, and our sin, and the thought of God, so great, so good, so pitiful, and so kind, should rouse in us the feeling of love, of humility, of trust. Our hearts should go out towards Him in a passion of self abandonment and self devotion. Feeling is like the steam in the boiler without which the machinery remains cold and lifeless. The third thing required is a definite act of the will. Feeling by itself is useless, just as steam by itself is either wasted, or becomes an active agent of destruction. Just as before steam can be used it must be confined and directed into certain channels, so it needs a distinct act of the will to give life to our thoughts and definiteness and direction to the vagueness of our feelings.

We must will to be and to remain in communion with God, we must will to worship and adore Him, we must will to do His Will, we must will to obtain from Him those things which we need for ourselves and for others. Our Lord emphasises this thought in the parable of the Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow. Perseverance, determination, will, are of the essence of true prayer.

Thus we see that real prayer requires a certain preparation, which includes reverence, concentration, and perseverance. Like every other art and science, prayer requires to be learnt and to be practised, if it is to be effectual. It is not sufficient for a soldier to say, The rifle is a most powerful instrument, when the day of battle is on me, I will use it. If it is to be of any real use to him in the day of battle, he must spend weeks and months in practising the use of it beforehand.

I suppose that it was this that our Lord meant when He made asking " in prayer," a condition of receiving. Prayer is not a mere asking. It is an asking which, with other things, is a part of a certain definite attitude of the soul to God; a well-known and carefully practised art. This is not to say that God does not regard sudden, ill-conceived and confused prayers. He may and often does, but such prayers hardly come within the scope of Christ's promise.