The Education for Prayer

Luke xi. 1 v. “One of His disciples said, Lord teach us to pray.”

You say, “It must have been a very primitive disciple.” I do not think so; I think it must have been St. John. It is, no doubt, a very easy thing to cry, but it is specially difficult to cry for the right thing. No man needs to say, “teach me to pray “; we have all an eye to our own interests. But every man needs to say “teach us to pray.” What is it that he asks in such a request? It is the abandonment of his whole nature. He says: Teach me to wish nobly, to wish unselfishly, to wish in harmony with others. Teach me to weigh beforehand the force of my own petition. Teach me to ponder whether my personal boon will be the universal joy. What if my desire should be a missile thrown at the common good! What if the overstrained note of my heart should break the melody of the universe! What if my prayer should destroy the symmetry of the house not made with hands! It is an awful tli ought and I tremble before it. I dare not ask for anything until I have learned to ask in unison. I dare not strike the note till my brother has given me the key. Until I have been taught to love, I have not been taught to pray.

Love on, then, oh my soul. Prayer is no lesson for the beginner; it is for the last year. It is thy mark for the highest prize. Before it can be reached by thee, thou must love all beautiful things — the hallowed name, the coming Kingdom, the accepted will, the brother’s bread, the forgiven debt, the redeemed evil. Prayers are wishes on the wing, and the wish is more than the wing. ]Srot the eagle’s pinion, but the eagle’s eye, is what thy Father prizes — not thy rise to God, but what thou seest in God. It is easy to fly, but it is hard to fly together. Thou must wait for the summer, oh my soul; let not your flight of prayer be in the winter of self-love. Wait for the sight of the common good. Wait for the sense of a universal care. Wait for the impulse of a united life. Wait for the love of the loveless, and the sigh for the sighing, and the pity for the pitiless. Wait till thou hast entered into the joy, into the pain, of thy Lord. In the June of thy spirit thou shalt be taught to pray.