Some Simple Suggestions About Praying

Failure Doesn’t Disturb Principles.

EVERYBODY prays, sometime, somehow. Need pulls a man to his knees, either actual knees or what amounts to that. There is something inside every man that makes him lift up his inner heart to some One unseen when the sore pinch comes. Use whatever words you please the fact of prayer is as widespread as man.

Religion is the longing within man’s heart after God. It is in every man, everywhere. It is really the pull-back toward God within every man’s spirit. Sin is the pull-away. Religion is really the inner pull-back.

Religions are the attempts, faulty, ignorant, superstition-blinded, dust-blurred, swampfogged, attempts to get back in touch with God.

The Gospel of Christ is God’s own answer to that longing in man’s inner heart. It is not a religion merely; it is the religion; the one true religion.

It is the one true full telling of how things actually stand between us men and God, and of how they may be changed back to the first original true relation.

Prayer is the natural expression of that longing in every man’s heart. In various parts of the earth, under the various religions taught, it takes on the faults and ignorances, the superstitions of all these religions.

The Gospel of Christ makes simple and clear just what real prayer is, cleared of these bad growths, and what its true natural place is.

The Bible, this solitary old Book of God, pictures these three things, namely, the tense inner longing for touch with God, the faulty attempts, everywhere and always, to get in touch, and the one true way to get in touch through Jesus Christ.

God answers prayer. This is the fact of prayer. This is the one only satisfactory statement about prayer.

A little child kneels at the mother’s knees, and asks for something needed. And some One unseen bends down over the child, and does as the child asks, because the child asks.

A woman, busy about her tasks, feels an inner pull-away to her knees about some need pressing sore in her life. And the Man unseen stoops gently over, listens with deep concern, and does as the woman asks, because she asks.

A man in the thick of the day’s work, maybe in the jostle of traffic, feels a strong inner pull within his spirit to prayer because of some tense need crowding in on him. He can’t go off alone just then. Soa prayer goes up, within, ‘‘on the fly,’’ brief, intense, very real.

And again that some One unseen by outer eyes draws closer, listens intently, feels deeply, and does what the man asks, because the man asks.

This is the great simple fact of prayer. It gets things done that otherwise wouldn’t be done, It changes things that need changing, and that otherwise would go unchanged, to somebody’s damage.

It does us good to pray. That’s true enough, blessedly true. Everybody that thinks at all about the thing agrees to that much. Men that won’t go further will go this far.

But that is the smaller part of prayer. It isn’t small. It’s never small. Yet when the other side, the outside part, is weighed and counted and foot-ruled it is seen that this inside part is distinctly smaller, the less part, in count and weight and measure.

Prayer actually gets things done. The things need doing. People are helped decidedly by their being done. They can’t be done in any other way. They haven’t been. For it takes power to get them done.

That power isn’t at hand in any other way. Prayer swings into action, down in the circumstances of our lives, the power that actually gets these things done.

This is the fact of prayer, the simple, undeniable fact of prayer. The results actually gotten cannot be denied. Hard hearts soften, stubborn wills bend, problems solve, questions are answered, a roadway opens up before your eyes where there was none, sickness gives way to health, money loosens out that had been fast locked up. This is the simple fact of prayer.

Of course, countless prayers go up that bring nothing down. But that doesn’t affect the principle of prayer, not by as much as the half-batting of your eyelid.

Your clock stops and refuses to start up again, with all your tinkering. But its failure doesn’t affect the principle of the clock. You still run your day pretty much by the clock on the mantel or in your pocket. You haven’t lost faith in clocks to tell the time of day and night.

The telephone fails to connect. The radio blurs up because of something in the air they call ‘‘static.’? But these things still play a pretty big part in our every-day life, do they not?

Any failure to fit into the principle of the clock, or of the telephone, or of the radio, or of prayer, will bring failure to get the immediate results desired. It’s some loose screw on the human side of things that holds up train, and steamer, and automobile. We simply go at finding what; and fixing it.

Does the train ever fail to get you in on time? Or the steamer? Or the automobile balk and stop and refuse to go for you? But these things still play a big place in your daily life.

And it will be found always that the same principle precisely controls in the far higher realm of prayer. There is a screw loose somewhere. There’s some failure to fit in, or some opposition trying to balk the effective working.

How To Begin.

Just now we want to talk together a little about the simple principles that underlie prayer. And they are so simple that any one may get in line and make use of this great power if he will; simply that, if he will.

For these qualities that prayer calls for are all qualities of the heart or will. It’s really a matter of choosing to have it so. The power is tingling now at your finger tips. You can reach out and have it, if you will.

. It’s not a matter of brain power, nor special ability, nor education, nor the social standing of your family, rarely valuable as these things are. It’s entirely a matter of an earnest eager willingness.

And the one big simple principle that lies at the very root of the thing is this: come into touch with Jesus Christ. Accept him as your Saviour. Trust his cleansing blood to clear up your sin score. Yield to him as your Master. Begin to companion with him as your greatest fellow human, your true real Friend.

All this can become more real to you in the daily habit of conduct and life. The fact of that touch ean begin at once, now, tf you will.

This is the beginning of prayer. It is very simple, but it is absolutely essential. It’s really as eating and breathing and walking and sleeping are to your bodily health, simple, very simple, and essential, absolutely essential.

Then there are five simple things if you are to grow in praying. One must not stay in the kindergarten. The mother is eager to have the baby walk; a step or two; by and by all alone, even if a bit wobbly. It’s startling how full the prayer kindergarten is of those that belong higher up, if they would only climb.

The first of these things is time. Like everything else prayer needs time; daily time, like the other essentials, sleeping and eating. It should be quiet time. It needs to be time enough to forget how much time it is, even though duties call you away.

So, it must be planned for, sometimes well ahead, so no duty is slighted, but time gotten for this. One must take time. He hasn’t time, likely enough in the pressure of things. It must be taken; taken from something else; something else important, yet less important.

No one worth while has time for all that comes crowding to his door. Something must be left out. So it’s a matter of practical sense in leaving the less important things out, and taking tume for this. Prayer does need time.

The second thing prayer needs is a place. You can pray anywhere, on a train, walking down street, measuring calico, chopping a typewriter, dictating a letter, in kitchen or parlour or shop. But you’re not likely to, unless you’ve been off in some quiet place, with the door shut.

Jesus said, ‘‘enter into thine inner chamber.’ He was an Oriental, humanly. And if an Oriental could say ‘‘inner chamber,’’ the man in the western hemisphere can actually get an inner chamber.

For the Orient does not have privacy, characteristically, as a rule. There are always exceptions. Personal privacy is really a trait of the western world, characteristically. The very domestic architecture of the two hemispheres reveals this striking difference.

Though it does seem as though the Orient is crowding into the western world in this matter. We seem to be all turning Parisians, living out in the boulevards, in the bustle and noise of the street.

We’re losing the fine touch of personal privacy out of our lives so much. Yes, and losing the fine fragrance and gentleness and real personal power out of our lives, too, so largely.

Prayer needs a place, an inner chamber, with a door, and the door shut, outside things shut out, and ourselves shut in with some One unseen.

It doesn’t matter where that place is. The corner of a kitchen is as good as the cloistered corner of a cathedral. Indeed some kitchens I have known are better than some cathedrals I have been in. It’s the recognized presence of our blessed Lord that makes either holy ground, kitchen or cathedral.

I think likely the walls of that Nazareth carpenter shop, or the slope of that hilltop in early morning or twilight, could give us many a helpful hint about praying. Prayer needs a place,

Our Lord said, ‘‘Thy Father who seeth in secret.’”? When you go alone into that inner corner you’re not alone. There’s some One else there. The more alone you are so far as others are concerned, the less alone you are so far as he is concerned.

And the real rare blessing of the daily quiet place is, not that you actually pray, though you will; not that you read the Book; though you will.

It is this: there’s some One else there. And to sit quiet in his presence, thank him that he is there, and that he died for you in the love of his heart; maybe to sing him a soft hymn of praise, this is the real blessedness of that bit of quiet time in the shut-away corner. Prayer needs a place, and prayer hallows the place, any place.

A Course in Ear Culture.

Then prayer needs a book, the Book. The Book is the basis of prayer. There’s an answer in one’s inner spirit, any one’s, to the living spirit of the Book.

Of course, the Book has been warped and twisted, ignored and scoffed at, burned up and cut up, quoted out of connection, and halfquoted, misquoted, covered up with vulgar dust and fine cultured scholarly dust, world without end, and the earth without fence. One can easily understand who’s back of all that sort of thing. Some one who hates the book, and is slavishly afraid of it.

The striking thing is that whether burned up in olden times, or cut up in more modern times, with lancet knives and skilled highly financed fingers, it remains without the smell of fire or the mark of knife.

The rarest true scholarship and culture, Spiritillumined, have but made its meaning clearer and simpler and more telling.

It is most striking, in the thick of the crosscurrents to-day, to note the rare evidence of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration from the first page to the last.

An accurate translation of the actual text of the creation story in Genesis is found to fit exactly into the latest findings of true science, biology and geology.

Quite clearly there is no progressive revelation, in the teaching of morals, nor of God’s love. The flood-light of both morals and God’s love is in the Eden story.

Those Ten Horeb Commands were written in Adam’s heart in Eden, and in every man’s since. They are put into such detailed shape, at the smoking flaming mount, because being ignored and scoffed by the whole race.

The gruesome details of immorality prohibited in the Wildness books, Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, are a looking-glass, reflecting the awful conditions common everywhere in the world at that time.

The heart that actually broke on Calvary is heart-broken with grief at the gates of Eden. The language actually used makes quite clear that it is a broken-hearted God that is planning racial salvage in that Sixth of Genesis.

Simple paraphrasing, though so laboriously exacting for strict accuracy, is immensely helpful in understanding in homely plain English, just what is being said.

A broad historical perspective, and a clear discernment of the moral issues involved, make it quite clear that the so-called massacres and cruelties, enjoined upon the Israelites in their warfare on the displaced Canaanites, are simply racial surgery.,

The unspeakably terrible moral conditions necessitated drastic measures to keep the race alive. The skilled surgeon, thrusting the keen edged knife into diseased vitals, is bent on saving the man’s life. He is recognized as a rare humanitarian.

Yet some ignorant person, who had never heard of surgery, coming suddenly into the operating room, and being told that the person on the table was alive, as he saw the surgeon plunge his knife into the patient’s vitals, would likely charge the surgeon with intent to kill the patient.

The few passages in the Psalms that seem to the unthinking man to breathe out a spirit of hatred, are found to be the intolerant hatred of purity toward impurity. Broad perspective makes this quite clear. Our Saviour’s words fit exactly into these so-called imprecatory Psalms.”

The Book throughout is all athrob with a broken-hearted love that gives itself out to the utmost to save man from himself.

In the early years of Moody’s career in England, he had been invited up to London, to meet the ministers. “Word had come of the remarkable results of his meetings in Yorkshire. Several hundred ministers gathered in London to meet this man, whom God was using so exceptionally. In the rapid fire of questions, one man said, ‘*‘Mr. Moody, what is your ereed?’’

Quick as a flash, Mr. Moody quietly said, ‘‘My creed is in print.’’

A chorus of voices called out, ‘‘Where?’’ and several hundred pencils came out to write down the title of the book containing Moody’s creed.

*Matthew 10:34-37. Luke 14:26.

Very quietly Mr. Moody replied, ‘‘It is in the Fifty-third of Isaiah, ‘he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities... with his stripes we are healed.’ ’’

With his rare fidelity to the old Gospel, and his rarely keen mentality, Moody had touched, with one quick incisive stroke, the whole throbbing heart of the old Book of God.

Now, this Book is the basis of all prayer. Bible reading is the listening side of prayer. In the Book God speaks to us. In prayer we speak to God. What he says to us radically affects what we say to him.

Prayer needs three organs of the face or head, an ear, a tongue, and an eye. The ear to hear what God says, the tongue to repeat his promises as our petitions, and the eye to look out expectantly until the result comes.

The ear comes first. The ear controls the tongue, where the faculties are naturally developed. What goes in at the ear comes out at the tongue. The little child repeats the words just as they come into the ear from the mother’s tongue, whether French or German, Bulgarian or Chinese or English.

Thoughtful Bible reading is giving God our ears. What goes in at the ear, warmed up as it goes through the heart, comes out at the tongue, in simple expectant warm prayer, communion and petition and intercession.

God spoke in this Book; he speaks in it. It was inspired in a distinctive way, true of no other book; it is inspired. There is a living spirit in the Book.

There is a Voice speaking out of these pages to-day, soft as the dews of Hermon, clear as the vibrant tones of a bell. There is a Hand reaching out of these pages, and reaching clear into conscience and heart. There is a Face here looking into your face.

Give this Book its place in your prayer. What God says here will wholly change what you will say, and so wholly change the results. The Book will shape and mould your praying. Let it.

Openness of Mind.

The fourth suggestion is as simple as these, and yet it should be emphasized. Let the Teacher teach you. There is one who is peculiarly the prayer teacher. Do you know who he is? the Holy Spirit.

It is he that puts the desire to pray in our hearts. He will direct all our praying, as a teacher the scholar, as a wise father his son.

Where is the Holy Spirit? May I answer that question very simply, to make the thing quite clear? He is here in me; and he is there inside you, if you have let him come in.

He is in every one whose heart has opened to the Lord Jesus. It is not so because we are good or deserving or saintly. It is because he is faithful.

The Holy Spirit is Jesus’ other self. He is Jesus’ successor in us down here. He comes to do in us all that Jesus did for us.

Jesus speaks interchangeably of himself and the Holy Spirit. In that Betrayal-night Talk he says, ‘‘He (the Father) will give you another

Comforter.’’ Then he says, speaking of the same thing, ‘‘Z come unto you.’’*

Let the Holy Spirit teach you. He is eager to. When you go into the quiet schoolroom, in the quiet bit of school time, with the school book open, ask this teacher to teach you. And he will. You may be a bit slow and stupid. Very likely. Most of us are. But he is very gentle and patient.

You will likely find your praying change some. It will become simpler. It will become more confident, and personal, and practical. It will be more like a scholar talking with a revered teacher, or a child to a loved father or mother.

Some things you will quit asking for, and thinking about. They will slip out of your thoughts in that presence. Other things will come in. Certain things you will pray for more boldly and confidently and expectantly.

The fifth suggestion needs emphasis. It needs emphasis because some of us are a bit set in our own way. It is this: Cultwate an openness of spirit. I mean that habitual openness of mind that opens up more, and then more, as clearer light breaks in.

It begins with that first surrender to Jesus Christ as Master. That’s opening up to him, the first opening up, the great start of all.

Then there should be the habitual surrender in the actual practice of daily life. As clearer light comes in, on this habit, that line of conduct, this old question, that problem, you actually live the surrender you made in that initial act.

1 John 14: 16-23. Note the entire passage.

It is quite a tug with most of us to make that initial surrender a habitual thing. Yet, of course, there is no surrender at all unless it is habitual in all.

This means that one gets into the habit of cultivating openness of mind, to any and every bit of light, that may come from any quarter. What a rare thing! Rare in its scarcity, and rare in its preciousness.

Stubbornness, sifted down, is simply refusing to yield to the new bit of light that comes. Openness to light is the one doorway to growth.

And, at heart, this openness is really loyalty to our Lord Jesus, our Saviour, who gave his life clear out for us.

In our eagerness to be loyal to him, we’ll welcome light from any candlestick or tallow dip, however lowly. We’ll pore thoughtfully over the Book, to get its meaning clear. We’ll cultivate the thoughtful sane wholesome brooding, meditating, to get things clear, and clearer.

These are the five simple suggestions about praying, a praying time, a prayer place, the prayer Book, the prayer teacher, the Holy Spirit, the habitual intelligent openness to more light. Let us all start in to school afresh.

The Knee Habit.

About fifty-five or six years ago, a young fellow went up to New York to make his fortune, if he could. His home was in a little university town in Georgia. He had had experience in journalism, and expected to make his way in New York as a newspaper reporter.

But the editorial doors in New York all proved to have rusty hinges. They still have. They would not open to his touch, try as he would. And the days wore away, and the funds wore down, and things began to look desperate.

At last, one day, an inner editorial door-knob did turn to his touch. And he found himself facing the managing editor of one of the largest and most prominent of the New York morning dailies.

“Prom Georgia? Hmm! Know anything about cotton??? There was an exciting flurry just then in the cotton market. Well, this young fellow knew all about cotton. He came from the cotton country. Cotton was a-b-c to him.

But he modestly replied, ‘‘I think I know something about cotton, sir.’’ ‘“Write me a story on the present cotton situation; four hundred words; have it in at four o’clock; if it goes, it’ll appear as an unsigned editorial to-morrow morning.’? And the editor turned abruptly back to his desk.

And the young man didn’t know whether his feet touched the ground or not, as he walked out. His chance had come. That was all he wanted, a chance. The rest was easy.

He went to his little cheap hall bedroom, drew over some paper, sharpened a few pencils, and settled down to write. That would be an easy job.

But the strain on his nerves, with uncertainty, and diminishing funds, and long tiresome waiting, had been harder than he had realized. And

the words wouldn’t come.

The stuff wouldnt write. It was exasperating. His brain was full of the thing, but he simply couldn’t get it out on the paper. What do you know about that? Some of us know a lot about it.

It must come. He had a good square jaw, and he resolutely locked it and seized the pencil anew. No, it didn’t come. Things looked desperate. His chance had come at last, and yet he was balked, and couldn’t use it.

But he had a good mother back there in that little Georgia town, an old-fashioned mother. She had taught him the use of his knees in boyhood. Blessed boy with a mother like that! Blessed mother who taught her boy the use of his knees!

And now he slipped to his knees at the edge of the table. He didn’t say much. The words are apt to be fewest when your spirit is tensest. The bended form was a big part of the prayer.

A quiet mood came over him. The opening sentence of the cotton story came into his mind. And reaching for the pencil, as he was kneeling at the table, he scratched it down. Then the next sentence, and the next. Once the cork is out, the stuff flows freely.

And now it is finished, and counted, and cut, and copied. But would it ‘‘go’’? The editor had said, ‘‘if it goes.’’

The next morning he stood at the curb and gave the news boy a nickel, his last nickel, as the story was told me, for a copy of the paper. But he was afraid to open it. What do you know about that? Some of us know a lot about it.

He opened the paper. Ah! There was the cotton story, written on his knees! His unseen Friend had been true. Mother was right after all. The knee habit had pulled him through.

He returned South in due course, became editor of one of the leading papers of the South, and made it famous. He had great influence, by tongue and pen, in sweetening up the relations between South and North, following the Civil War.

Then the tide of prosperity nearly swamped him, as the tug of adversity had in the early years. And again the knee habit re-asserted itself, and he became a great blessing to others.

If we might remember that our Lord Jesus knows all about cotton, and lumber, and oil, and ragged nerves, and tight corners, and notes due at the bank. And all he has is at our disposal, through prayer.

God answers prayer. Let us pray more, and more simply, and more expectantly.

Lord Jesus, teach us to pray. Help us learn how. Thou knowest both ends of prayer, the praying end down here, and the answering end ap yonder. Teach us.

We would be good scholars in thy school, punctual in attendance, keeping the door shut, and the Book open, and the knee bent, and the will bent, too. We will be scholars; help us be good scholars. In Jesus’ name, Amen.