The Supplications of the Spirit
“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.” — EPH, vi. 18.
“eS RAYING always with all prayer;” one =/% would think the command was unqualified. Yet it is not. I am not to ask everything indiscriminately. There is a limit within which my desires are to wander. I am not to be allowed the answer to “all prayer,” but to “all prayer in the Spirit.” The man of science tells me that I must not ask anything that is at variance with the law of nature. The order of the Spirit is the law of God’s nature, and it is an absolute law. I must not seek to change it, I dare not desire to violate it, for it is without variableness or the least shadow of turning. The order of God’s Spirit is the law of love; to pray in God’s Spirit is to desire in conformity with love. If I ask that which is not conformable to God’s nature, I am like the child that cries for the moon; I want to put asunder what God has joined together. The overture to all prayer must be “Thy will be done;” no man can sing the song of supplication who has pitched his voice upon a lower key. My Father measures distance not by space but by sympathy; my voice shall He hear in the morning if I ask “in the Spirit.”
Lord, teach me to pray. Teach me that form of prayer which marks the boundaries within which I may ask of Thee. Teach me to desire that by which Thy name shall be hallowed, to seek that which shall hasten Thy Kingdom, to wish that which shall be consistent with Thy will. Teach me before all things to say “our Father.” I sometimes forget that I have a brother, forget that he has wants common with my own. I sometimes lose the remembrance that the satisfaction of my want may mean the impoverishment of my brother; I say, ‘‘Give me this day my daily bread.” Restore to me, O divine Love, the memory of Thy cross. Restore to me the fading sense of Thy kingdom, Thy power, Thy glory. Remind me that Thy kingdom is service, that Thy power is sacrifice, that Thy glory is humanity redeemed. Revive within me the sympathy that feels another’s pain, the charity that weaves another’s hope, the love that participates in another’s joy. Let me cease to thank Thee that I am not as other men; my prayer shall become Thy prayer when I shall ask through Thy Spirit.