“IS PRAYER REASONABLE?”

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144150, 21 July 1913, Page 6

“IS PRAYER REASONABLE?”

ADDRESS BY REV. A. H. COLVILE. Following is tho address given to men only in St. Mary’s Church on Sunday afternoon;— “And it came to pass, that as Jesus was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray.”—S. Luke xi., 1. Some years ago—l beliovo about the middle of last century—a proposal was made by certain well-known scientific professors to bring tho efficacy of prayer for temporal relief to what they averred to bo an accurate and decisive test. They proposed, if I remember rightly, that a certain ward in a hospital should have its patients prayed for, and that certain other wards should bo left out, and that tho relative result as regards health should be taken as a decisive answer to, tho question, Is prayer reasonable ? The proposal was made, I dare say, in perfect good faith, but it was one that obviously could not be accepted. To subject so sacred a thing as the communion of man with God to a process of verification by statistics would he felt by everyone who believed in. God to bo irreverent in tho highest degree. It would bo to “seek a sign” in tho very Hvay that Christ again and again condemned.

But such proposals aro all for good if they force Chrasiians to consider what they really mean by prayer; if they give us a larger conception of what prayer is. Every suggestion, however unfriendly, that leads us to be less mechanical in our religion is something to be thankful for, and certainly any suggestion that helps to clear up our minds about so important a subject as prayer ought to be welcome. But what could ever give rise to such a suggestion? Surely tho idea that many Christians hold, or appear to hold, that prayer is simply asking God for certain things that wo want, tho demanding of certain gifts. "Well, anyone who tries to think tho question out even a little way must sea that such a theory of prayer takes away tho world from God’s rule and places it at the mercy of man’s variable and conflicting desires. It involves all sorts of absurdities: e.g., that two men should make contrary requests at the same time, and the one who didn’t get his request should refuse any more to believe in God; or tho absurdity of the farmer who asked the clergyman to pray that it might fain on one field and he fine in the next, and so on. Because such misconceptions are often current oven now, and because of the great importance of a right view of prayer, I have chosen as the subject of our thoughts this afternoon, Is prayer reasonable? Now tho Bible idea of prayer is primarily it is a means of communion with God. and only very secondarily that it is the making of particular requests. That is tho view of prayer which even tho Old Testament presents to us. What it calls prayers are simply efforts after closer communion with God; e.g., tho song of Hannah is called a prayer—it is simply a rejoicing in God. Tho Psalms, which aro full of every human emotion, are called prayers, though .there is often no direct appeal in them. Or let mo quote the prayer of Habakkuk, which, because it is not read in church, is little known: “The mountains saw thee and they trembled. The sun and tho moon stood still in their habitation; at tho light of Thine arrows they went, at the shining of Thy glittering spear. Thou did.st walk through the sea with Thine horses, through tho heap of great waters.” And this religions poem, as wo should describe it, this expression of natural reli-, gion, is called a prayer. Or take the great prayer of our Lord Himself in the 17th chapter of St. John. The element of petition is there, but tho most lasting impression that tills prayer 'makes on us is that we have been listening not to petition but to tho highest kind of meditation —the communing oR. tho Son with the Father, tho Son in the presence of the Father speaking with the Father. If we, too, are the sons of God, made in His image, having His nature within us, is not such prayer reasonable? nay, would it not ho unreasonable to omit it? Or take again the Lord’s Prayer—tho model given us by Christ for ours. Is the Lord’s prayer reasonable? There is petition in it, but it is never petition for individual needs and only once for any outward good. What does Christ teach us to ask in His prayer? That God may he known and loved; that He may reign in kingdoms: i.e., in political and State affairs as well as in the every-day lives of men; that God’s will may be done. And tho one temporal need that we carry to the Throne of Grace—tho prayer for daily bread is for the simplest necessity, and oven that solitary petition is redeemed from all selfishness by its very warding “give ■ us”—since wo must ask for our neighbours’ together with our own. With these examples before ns of Biblo prayers, we cannot limit our conception of prayer to the insisting on the supply of our personal wants. Wo may pray most really without any words at all, without asking anything, kneeling simply alono before God, concentrating our thoughts on Him. For tho essence of prayer is not asking, but communion and intercourse with tho Father of onr spirits; and so prayer is tho expression of all tho varying emotions of the soul, its moments or rapture, its moments of fear and doubt, aye, and, its hour of shame and misery. Think how these three emotions are expressed in the Psalms: “My heart danceth for joy, and in my|song will I praise Him.” “My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is tho strength of my life and my portion for over.” “My soul cleaveth'unto the dust: quicken me, 0 Lord, according to Thy word.” All three natural expressions of human experience. All three the giving out of tho soul to its God. Is not such prayer reasonable? But you will say, surely there is something more in prayer than this? If wo think at all earnestly about God in connection with ourselves, is it not natural that our thoughts should gradually shape themselves in tho form of a petition. If there is any truth in tho Fatherhood of God, if Ho is not merely the great first cause who has created tho world, set tho machinery in motion, and then left it to itself, if Ho is one in whom wo live and move and have our being—then would it not be unreasonable to leave the element of petition out of our prayers. , Is it not reasonable to ask a father for things that wo want? We cannot help feeling our dependence upon God. Even tho strong man at tho height pf his success is conscious of mysterious limitations all around him, of temptations lurking in dark corners, of tho limitations of this earth life, of tho uncertainty of success—those things teach him liis dependence on God. And tho weak man, who limitations are in himself ; whoso temptations have no need to lurk in dark corners, but Haunt in the light of day—does lie not feel that same dependence? And tho father who cares for his children and watches their up-growing with a kind of desperate anxiety, knowing as they do not know, the temptations that will

meet them at every turn, does ho not fool his dependence on God? Aye, do wo not all feel, as onr thoughts go out to Him expressing those deep emotions of the soul which wo keep concealed from all the world —joy, fear, nope, shame, disappointment, longing—do we not feel that petition is natural, and that because it is natural it is reasonable. Ah, it is all • very well to talk about the philosophy of prayer. But when deep and strong emotions rend the soul, philosophy is cold and unsatisfying. And when our hearts are empty and asking, and no man will give unto us. When the injustice and coldness and indifference of the_ world to our deepest needs would drive us into a bitter depression, or a despairing resignation that is worse than rebellion, then is not our natural instinct to appeal from the world’s verdict to the wide impartiality of the judgment of God, to cry to God to give us what the world denies us. Then we remember tho words of Jesus, which bid us ask and we shall receive, seek and wo shall find, knock and it shall be opened, and wo feel that it we may not ask God for tho things that wo.want, the things so close to our hearts, prayer is useless; we would lose our belief in a loving Father as well as in a powerful God. Prayer is reasonable because ‘ it is tho natural expression of an instinct, but all petition is not necessarily reasonable. Wo Christians will readily grant that. The great modern argument against prayer is that tho more we understand the nature of the universe, the more convinced wo become that God rules the world by fixed laws; that incidentally in the process of evolution these laws may inflict apparent hardship, but the end is the general welfare, or, as we say. tho greatest happiness of the great! est number. How, then, can 1 ask that Ho should violate or suspend one of those laws to favour me—to supply my want or gratify my desire. If God rules tho world by fixed laws is it reasonable to hope that ho will work a miracle' for mo?

The answer is that prayer in its petitionary aspect is quite reasonable, because, although God does not change bis laws. He can, and does, change us, and in this way ho answers many of our prayers for temporal blessing. Wo should all agree that it is what we are in ourselves that matters most, far, more than the circumstances that surround us. Tho life is more than moat, tho character is more than circumstances; a change in our disposition does more for us than a change in fortune. Take the case of a loafer who comes up to you in tho street and asks for money. If you could give that man industry and perseverance, and love of struggle, you would be doing more foy him than if you gave him a handful of sovereigns. Nay, yon would actually bo giving him more of the same sort of thing that ho asked for. The direct gift of a handful of sovereigns would bo of little use to him. When they were spent he would be as badly off as ever. Tho change in himself would bring him a constant supply of sovereigns. So with our prayers to God. Often we are just like beggars asking for alms, we expect God to drop good things into our hand. If God can change us—then in tho truest way Ho answers our prayer. Wo pray for a happy home, for deliverance from want and anxiety. God touches the spring within us, and lo! the prayer is answered by our own changed attitude. Circumstances, perhaps, remain the same, and yet there is change, and tho change is in him who prayed. And if this is so, then it follows that God can answer many more prayers by influencing the conduct of our neighbours through their hearts and consciences and wills. If wo think for a moment we shall see how much wo depend for our happiness on those who surround ns. Not only the whole comfort of our life, our peace of mind, hut also our health, and therefore our usefulness depend on their temper and moods. How differently wo all act, how much more freely and naturally if wo feol wo are surrounded by trust and appreciation, than if wo are the victims of microscopic jealousies and silont gridges. What poor, narrow, cramped creatures wo become if we have to live in an unsympathetic atmosphere. Wo are dependent for many things that go to make up' our happiness on the wills and hearts and consciences ‘of others: And those others God can influence without in any way changing one of' His natural laws, and in that influence there is large and free scope for prayer and for answers to prayer that change all the circumstances of our lives. This much, wo ■can sea plainly, goes to make prayer reasonable. I have not time, I know well, to touch on all tho difficulties of prayer. Lot mo. conclude with this one other consideration—ls prayer unreasonable because so often it appears to us to remain unanswered? God forbid that wo should think so. My brothers, lam sure that no real prayer ever remains unanswered, but it is true that wo cannot always recognise the answer. Jesus Christ himself prayed that the cup might pass from Him, and it did not pass. Was His prayer therefore anauswerod? No, “there appeared an angel from Heaven strengthening Him.” That was the answer and the best and most helpful answer too. Surely tho only justification for prayer is that we believe that Him to whom wo pray knows infinitely more than we do. Surely then it is reasonable to believe that God gives not necessarily what wo ask, but what Ho knows to bs best. Think how variable and conflicting our own desires are. How we change year by year. With many of us what is one year’s meat is another year’s poison, and though no real prayer ever fails of an answer we need to watch our own prayers and onr desires too. We need to pray intelligently, and above all to raise our wills to bring them into harmony with God’s, to pray that wo may learn to pray “Lord teach ns ; Father if it bo possible ; nevertheless not my will but thino be done.” No grand, eloquent appeal, but a few broken words from tho depths of tho heart. Such prayers God longs for; of tho myriads that go up to Him every day these are what He listens for, and for ns they are rest in trial and perplexity; they give strength to every good purpose and wisdom to evert- difficult choice. Such prayers may God teach us all to say, ior Jesus Christ’s sake.