The First Note in Prayer

Wars would no more devastate this fair earth. Business would be made holy, each man thinking of the good of his brothers as much as of his own. Heaven would be brought down to earth, if the great lesson of the brotherhood of all Gods children were only learned and realized in life.

These are but hints of the vast and deep meaning of this wonderful invocation. We have foimd enough, at least, in it to assure us of welcome whenever we come as children to our Father. We need to strive more and more after the child spirit; for only when we have it can we find our way to the innermost warmth of divine love.

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*It is not prayer —

This clamor of our eager toaiUe
ThatfiUe the air
With wearying f eeJfieh plaints,

*It is true prayer

To seek the Giver more than gift;
OodPs life to share.
And love — for this our cry to Uft,*

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HE order of the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer is not accidental, for it was Jesus who said, “After this manner pray ye.*” We should notice, therefore, what we are to put first when we come to Grod. It is not a request for anything for ourself. Important and pressing as our personal needs may be, we are to set them all aside, while we ask first for the hallowing of God’s name. In the opening words of the prayer we are taught not to pray to Grod for ourself alone, but always to bring others with us — “Owr Father.*” Here we learn further that Grod himself must be put first. As the evening star is the brightest star in the heavens, so among all the petitions this shines with the most brilliant lustre, “Hallowed be thy name.*” [46]

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Yet if we were making a form of prayer we should probably not have anything like this in it. Prayer, we would likely say, is asking God for things that we need or that we think we need. It is pleading with God for favors, for help to get on with our ambitions, for prosperity, for freedom from trouble and trial. For our friends and neighbors, so far as we put them into our prayers at all, we usually ask earthly good things. For the members of our own household, for whom we probably pray at times, if we really ever pray, we are apt to solicit things that will advance them socially or in their work or business. For ourselves, most of us think of prayer only as a way to make life easier, to get what we want, to add to our earthly comforts, to get rid of inconveniences, to escape trials.

It is scarcely likely, therefore, that if we were preparing a form of prayer we would have anything in it about hallowing Gtxi’s name. We should probably ring a number of changes on [46]

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**Give us this day our daily bread,’’ amplifying the petition and adding to it requests for a number of other things besides daily bread. But we would not likely rise above the level of earthly things. Almost certainly we would not rise to anyiliing so sublime as a prayer for the hallowing of Grod’s name. We would better learn well, however, the lesson taught us by our Lord when he set this petition in the place of highest honor, bidding us begin with it. Really we cannot advance to any petition that comes after it until we have ofPered this one. It is dishonoring to God, when we go into his presence, to begin to clamor for poor paltry things for ourself, with no thought or aspiration or pleading for the glorifying of Gtxl’s name. We pray not as we ought, acceptably to our Father, unless we plead first of all that Grod himself may be honored. It is related that a French boy rode up to Napoleon, during one of his battles, and told him that the victory was won. “But you are [47]

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wounded, my boy,” said Napoleon. “Killed, sire,” said the lad, dropping down dead. The boy thought only of the honor of his general, giving no attention whatever to his own condition. Our Lord, in putting this petition first in the form of prayer he gave to his disciples, teaches us that we should come before Grod in the same self-forgetful spirit, not telling him of our own sufferings and needs first of all, but pleading for his glory and honor. Of course we need bread. Our bodies have their hungers, and God is not indifferent to our physical needs. A little later in the prayer we have a petition for bread. But before we come to this, we have three other petitions — for the hallowing of Gods name, the coming of his kingdom, the doing of his will. All these great objects are to be put before any request for ourself, even for bread, or for the forgiveness of our sins. This teaching applies also to the spirit in which all our prayers should be offered as well as to the order of the petitions. Indeed all our life is [48]

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to be lived with a view to the glorifying of the divine name. God must be first in everything. We are to love him with all our heart, with all our strength, with all our mind. We are to seek first his kingdom and righteousness. We are to aim in all our life to give honor to him. “Whether ye eat, or drink,*” says St. Paul, “or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of Grod.*” Again, “Whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.*” We are never to think in our daily and hourly living what will most honor us, what will be the easiest thing, or the most profitable, but what will most honor God. How it would modify human ambitions €uid change the whole aim of living if this were to become the universal rule, if our question should always be, “What will please God and make his name more glorious?^ Then, in all our praying as well as in our living, the first desire of our heart should be for the hallowing of Grods name. And not only is this prayer to be offered as a specific petition [49]

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at the very gate, as we enter the temple, but in all our prayers, to the very close, the first object should be, not the obtaining of our requests for ourself, but the honoring of God. You want something very much. It seems to you to be essential to your happiness. Yet do you know that the granting of this thing so dear would glorify God? You are not sure. Instead, therefore, of pressing your requests for things you would like to have, you would better refer the matter to God, saying: “I dare not decide. I would rather leave it to Gtxl, asking that he would grant my requests if to do so would most honor his name.*” If we had learned this eflFacement of self in all our desires, whether in our work or in our praying, if God were always first in our desire, it would lift up our commonest life into a splendor radiant as that in which the angels live; and if we but lived thus altogether for the glory of God,’ we should have the divine companionship and help in all that we do. [60]

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There is a beautiful legend from the story of the later days of Greece which illustrates this lesson. The religious spirit had waned among the people and the old enthusiastic belief in the gods had almost died out. A prize was offered to the sculptors of the land for the best marble statue of a certain god. A country lad heard of the offer of the prize. He believed in this god with all his heart and in his passionate love desired to make the statue. Choosing a block of marble, he hewed away manfully. He had in his mind a noble ideal of the grace, majesty, and strength of the god he loved, and wrought with great ardor and earnestness. But he lacked the artistes skill and experience, and though he did his best, his statue, when finished, was crude, lacking beauty and grace. Then the legend relates that this god, seeing the lad’s endeavor to honor him and worthily represent him before men, helped him, turning his poor fedlure into perfect success. When the day of trial came and the different statues were [61]

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passed upon, while other competitors were laughing at the crude thing which the boy had shaped with unskilled hand but believing heart, the god himself entered into that pathetic marble failure, glorifying it with his own beauty. Instantly the harsh, imcomely lines flowed into faultless symmetry, the awkward head was lifted in proud dignity, and the whole form of the rudely cut stone glowed with the matchless grace of life. It is only a heathen legend. No deity of human fancy ever had power to work such a miracle for any of his devotees. But the legend interprets and illustrates what the true God does for all who live for him and with loyal heart and diligent hand faithfully seek to glorify him. “Them that honor me, I will honor,” is his promise. Poor indeed may be the work we do, with no beauty in men’s eyes; but if it is wrought in pure love and with a sincere desire to do honor to our Lord, he will take the endeavor of our clumsy hands and give it the grace it lacks, transforming it into a loveliness [62]

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which will really honor him whom we so earnestly sought to glorify.

In our praying, too, the same is true. It seems to us that the things we desire for our own comfort or pleasure are the things that will be best for us. Indeed we think we cannot be happy, can scarcely even live, unless we get these things that are so dear. Yet if we press these desires with all himian eagerness, thinking only of what we want for ourself, and give no thought to the honoring of God, we are very short-sighted, and, at best, are choosing the lower rather than the higher good. To leave out thought of God in anything we seek is to drag our life in the dust when it ought to soar away into the clear blue of heaven. If, therefore, we make our prayers always for the hallowing of God’s name, first of all, whether the thing we desire be given to us or not, we take our place with God as co-worker, and are lifted up into companionship with him. It may be that the thing we sought so ear- [63]

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nestly may be withheld from us, or that the sorrow or loss against which we pleaded with such intensity of desire, shall come with all its crushing weight; still if our prayer was “Hallowed be thy name, whatever the cost may be to me,’’ we shall find the glory of God shining in the very darkness about us, and the blessing of God in the very bitterness of the grief in which we sit.

Nothing that this world can give us is really good unless it come to us out of our Father’s hands, the choice of his wisdom for us, with the benediction of his favor upon it. Though all of earth’s joys and possessions be taken from us, leaving us bare of comfort, bereft of human love, broken and suffering, if Grod has been honored in that we have passed through and in all that has come to us, we are rich with an enriching that shall never lose its lustre or its preciousness.

We should learn well this lesson, therefore,

that the very first thing in praying always Cbe Sim jQote in prapet

should be the pleading that God’s name may be honored though the thing we seek be not given; that it be not given unless its bestowal would glorify Grod. When we have learned to pray in this spirit, we shall find ourself exalted into fellowship with Christ himself. It was thus he prayed in the temple that day, in what seems to have been a preliminary Grethsemane agony: “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name.*” If we learn to pray thus, our prayers will always be acceptable to God and our life shall show forth his praise.” Once U was the blessing,

Now it is the Lord.

Once it was the feeling.

Now it is his word.

Once his gifts I wanted,

Now himself alone.

Once I sought Jbr healing.

Now the Healer own.”