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Teach Me to Pray |
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formerly titled The Believer's School of
Prayer
By Andrew Murray (1828-1917)
Chapter 16--The Power of Persevering
Prayer
Then Jesus told his disciples a
parable
to show them that they should always pray and not give up..... And the Lord said, "listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly." Luke 18:1, 6-8
Of all the mysteries of the prayer world,
the need of persevering prayer is one of the greatest. We cannot easily understand that the Lord, who is so loving and longing to bless, should have to be asked time after time, sometimes year after year, before the answer comes. This is also one of the greatest practical difficulties in the exercise of believing prayer. After persevering supplication, when your prayer remains unanswered, it is often easiest for our slothful flesh-- with the appearance of pious submission-- to think that we must now cease praying because God may have His secret reason for withholding His answer to our request.
By faith alone the difficulty is
overcome.
Once faith has taken its stand upon God's Word and the name of Jesus, and has yielded itself to the leading of the Spirit to seek only God's will and honor in its prayer, it need not be discouraged by delay. It knows from Scripture that the power of believing prayer is simply irresistible. Real faith can never be disappointed.
To exercise the irresistible power it can
have, faith,
just like water, must be gathered up and accumulated until the stream can come down in full force. Often there must be a heaping up of prayer until God sees that the measure is full--and then the answer comes. Just as the plowman has to take his ten thousand steps and sow his ten thousand seeds, each one a part of the preparation for the final harvest, so there is a need for oft-repeated persevering prayer, all working out some desired blessing. It knows for certain that not a single believing prayer can fail of its effect in heaven, but each has its influence and is treasured up to work toward an answer in due time to the one who perseveres to the end.
Faith knows that it deals not with human
thoughts
or possibilities but the Word of the living God. Just as Abraham through so many years "in hope believed against hope" (Romans 4:18), and then "through faith and patience inherited the promise" (Hebrews 6:12), faith believes that the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation, waiting for the coming of its Lord to fulfill His promise.
To enable us to combine quiet patience
and joyful confidence
in our persevering prayer when the answer to our prayer does not come at once, we particularly need to understand the two words by which our Lord describes the character and conduct not of the unjust judge, but of our God and Father toward those whom He allows to cry day and night to Him: "Will he keep putting them off?... He will see that they get justice, and quickly" (Luke 18:7-8)
He will avenge them quickly,
the Master says.
The blessing is all prepared. He is not only willing but anxious to give them what they ask. Everlasting love burns with the longing desire to reveal itself fully and satisfy the needs of its beloved. God will not delay one moment longer than is absolutely necessary. He will do all in His power to hasten and speed the answer.
But if this is true and His power is
infinite,
why does the answer to prayer often delay so long? Why must God's own elect, so often in the midst of suffering and conflict, cry day and night?
"Will he keep putting them off?"
(Luke 18:7).
"See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for autumn and spring rains" (James 5:7). The farmer does indeed long for his harvest, but knows that it must have its full time of sunshine and rain, and so has much patience. A child so often wants to pick the half-ripe fruit; the farmer knows to wait until the proper time. Man, in his spiritual nature, too, is under the law of gradual growth that reigns in all created life. Only in the path of development can he reach his divine destiny. And it is the Father, in whose hands are the times and seasons, who alone knows the moment when the soul or the church is ripened to that fullness of faith in which it can receive and maintain the blessing. As a father longs to have his only child home from school but waits patiently until the time of training is completed, so it is with God and His children. He is the long-suffering One and answers speedily (at the right time).
Insight into this truth leads the
believer to cultivate
corresponding attitudes. Patience and faith, waiting and hastening, are the secrets of his perseverance. By faith in God's promise, we know that we have the petitions we have asked of Him. Faith takes hold of the answer in the promise as an unseen spiritual possession and then rejoices and praises God for it.
But there is a difference between the
faith
that holds the Word and knows it has the answer, and the clearer, fuller, riper faith that claims the promise as a present experience. It is in persevering, not unbelieving, but confident and praiseful prayer, that the soul grows up into that full union with its Lord in which it can enter upon the possession of the blessing in Him. Before the answer can fully come there may be things that have to be put right--in those around us, in humankind as a whole, or in God's government-- but the faith that has according to the Word believed that it has received can allow God to take His time. It knows it has prevailed and must prevail. In quiet, persistent, and determined perseverance, it continues in prayer and thanksgiving until the blessing comes. So we see combined what at first sight appears contradictory: faith that rejoices in the answer from the unseen God as a present possession, along with the patience that cries day and night until it is revealed. The quickly of God's putting them off is met by the triumphant but patient faith of His waiting child.
The great danger in this school of
delayed answers
is the temptation to think that it may not be God's will after all to give us what we ask. If our prayer is according to God's Word and after the leading of the Spirit, let us not give way to these fears. Let us learn to give God time. God needs time with us. If we only give Him time--in daily fellowship with Him-- for Him to exercise the full influence of His presence on us, and time--day by day, in the course of our being kept waiting-- for faith to prove its reality and to fill our whole being, then He will lead us from faith to vision. We will see the glory of God.
Let no delay shake our faith.
Faith also yields--first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Each believing prayer brings the final victory a step nearer. Each believing prayer helps to ripen the fruit and bring it closer; fills up the measure of prayer and faith known to God alone; conquers the hindrances in the unseen world; hastens the end. Child of God, give the Father time. He is long-suffering over you. He wants the blessing to be rich and full and sure. Give Him time, while you cry day and night. Only remember the word: "I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly" (Luke 18:8)
The blessing of such persevering prayer
is unspeakable.
Nothing is so heart-searching as the prayer of faith. It teaches you to discover and confess and give up everything that hinders the coming of the blessing and everything that may not be in accordance with the Father's will. It creates a closer fellowship with Him who alone can teach us to pray. It leads to a more entire surrender, to draw near under no covering but that of the blood and the Spirit. It calls to a closer and simpler abiding in Christ alone. Christian, give God time. He will perfect that which concerns you. "Putting them off--quickly" is God's watchword as you enter the gates of prayer. Let is be yours too.
Let it be this way whether you pray for
yourself or for others.
All labor, bodily or mental, needs time and effort. We must give ourselves to it. Nature reveals her secrets and yields her treasures only to diligent and thoughtful labor. However little we understand it, in spiritual husbandry it is the same: the seed we sow in the soil of heaven, the efforts we put forth and the influence we seek to exert in the world above, need our whole being-- we must give ourselves to prayer. But let us hold fast the confidence that in due season we shall reap if we faint not.
O Lord my God, teach me to know
your way and in faith
to grasp what your beloved Son has taught us: "He will see that they get justice, and quickly." Let your tender love and the delight you have in hearing and blessing your children lead me to accept implicitly your promise that we receive what we believe, that we have the petitions we ask, and that in due time the answer will come.
Lord, help us to understand the
seasons in nature
and know to wait with patience for the fruit we long for. Fill us with the assurance that you will not delay one moment longer than is needed, and that faith will yield the answer.
Blessed Master, you have said that
it is typical
of God's elect that they cry day and night in prayer. Teach us to understand this. You know how quickly we grow faint and weary. It seems as if you are so much beyond the need or reach of continued supplication that it is improper for us to be too importunate. Lord, teach me how real the labor of prayer is. Here on earth when I have failed in an undertaking, I can often succeed by renewed and continued effort, by giving more time and thought to a thing. Show me how by giving myself completely to prayer and to live more in the spirit of prayer, I will obtain what I ask. Above all, blessed teacher, author and perfector of my faith, by your grace let my whole life be one of faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me-- in whom my prayer is accepted, in whom I have the assurance of the answer, from whom the answer will surely come. Lord Jesus, in this faith I will always pray and not faint. Amen. submitted in love ~ |
