By J.R. Miller
When General Gordon was with his army in Khartoum, it is said that there was an hour every day when a white handkerchief lay over his tent door. While that signal was there--no one, however high his rank, ever approached the tent. The most urgent business waited outside. Everyone knew that Gordon was at prayer that hour within the tent, and neither a man nor an officer came near until the handkerchief was lifted away.
There is always sacredness about prayer. We instantly withdraw if unawares we suddenly come upon one engaged in prayer. We are awed into reverence when we see anyone, however humble, bowing in prayer. But the sight of Christ at prayer touches us with still deeper awe. We uncover our heads, and take off our shoes, and stand afar off in reverent hush--while He bows before His Father and communes with Him. Yet no figure is more familiar in the Gospels than the Master at prayer.
It brings Christ very near to us--to see Him in this holy posture. We think of Him as the Son of God, as having in Himself all power, all blessing, all comfort, and all Divine fullness, and as not needing to ask His Father for anything. But when He became Man, He accepted all of our life. He lived as we must live. He was dependent on God, as we are, for help, for strength, for deliverance in temptation, for all blessing and good. He prayed as we do, pleading earnestly as He taught us to do. When we think how completely and fully Jesus entered into all our life of trust and dependence, we get a vivid impression of His closeness to us. And if He, the Son of man, who knew no sin, who was also Son of God, needed to pray so continually; how can any of us, weak, sinful, needy, with imperiled lives, with empty lives, get along without prayer?
In a sense, Jesus was always at prayer. His communion with God was never interrupted for a moment. One of Paul's exhortations is, "Pray without ceasing." Our Lord fulfilled this ideal. He was not always on His knees. He passed most of His days in exhausting service. But in all His ministry of love, He never ceased to pray.
He was not always asking favors of His Father. That is the only kind of praying some people seem to know anything about. They pray only when they are in trouble, and want to be helped out of it. But that is a very small part of true prayer. We want to be with our friends as much as we can. Though we have no request to make of them, we like to talk with them of things in which they and we are mutually interested, or even to sit in silence without speech.
Some friends wanted to know how the holy Bengel prayed, and watched him at his devotions one night. He opened his New Testament and read slowly and silently, often pausing in meditation, or as if listening to the voice of gentle stillness. There was a glow in his features, and frequently he would look up as if he saw a face which his watcher could not see. Thus an hour passed. He had not once been on his knees, nor had he been heard to utter a word. Then as the clock struck the hour for his retiring he closed the book, saying only, "Dear Lord Jesus, we are on the same old terms." And went to his bed. That was truest prayer. That is what it is to pray without ceasing--to be always near enough to God to talk with Him, always to be drinking in His love even in our busiest hours.
But while Jesus prayed thus without ceasing, there were many occasions of special prayer in His life. Again and again He went apart from men--to be alone with God. He spent whole nights in communion beneath the silent stars.
"Cold mountains and the midnight air
Witnessed the fervor of Your prayer."
It will be interesting to notice some of the occasions on which Jesus prayed. The first of these was the time of His baptism. Whatever else His baptism meant; it was His consecration to the work of His Messiahship. He knew what it involved. He saw the cross yonder--but He voluntarily entered on His course of love and sacrifice. As He was being baptized He prayed, and then heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon Him. His praying that hour showed His deep longing and desire for the Divine anointing to prepare Him for His great work.
This example of Jesus teaches us to seek Divine blessing as we begin our life work, also as we enter any new calling, as we accept any new responsibility. People sometimes forget that they need Divine anointing, for what they call secular work. They want God's Spirit to help them in their religious duties--but they do not suppose that they need heavenly anointing for a business life, or a professional life, or for the task work of their common days. Yet there is nothing we have to do, however unspiritual it may seem, in the doing of which we do not need the help of the Holy Spirit.
Another of the occasions on which Jesus prayed was before He chose His disciples. This choice was most important. These men were to be with Him as His close, constant companions, His personal friends. He would need their companionship, their sympathy, their love. Upon them would rest a grave responsibility after He was gone. He was to train them, so that they would be ready to carry on His work. They must be men capable of absolute devotion to His will, men who could endure persecution, men whom the Holy Spirit could use. It was of the greatest importance that no mistake should be made. So, before choosing them, Jesus spent the whole night in prayer.
A great deal of folly is committed in the world, by ignorance and foolish choices. It is so in choosing friends. We do not know what any such choice may mean to us, whether it may bring us joy or sorrow, whether it may put upon our life, touches of beauty--or of marring. If Jesus prayed all night before choosing His friends, young people setting out in life should very earnestly seek God's guidance before taking into their lives any new companionship.
But the lesson applies to all choices and decisions. We do not know what path to take in all the tangled network of ways. We do not know to what any new road may lead us. We chafe and fret when we are not allowed to have our own way. But really we have no wisdom to choose what is best for us. We are safe only when we are Divinely led.
We behold the Master at prayer again, and this time something very wonderful happens. One evening He climbed a high mountain to get away from earth's noises and confusions. He was setting out on His last journey to His cross, and sought strength for it. While He was praying, He was transfigured. The inference for us is that earnest prayer always transfigures.
And there are so many people who need transfiguring! Their faces are not bright. They lack joy. The peace of God is not revealed in them. They bear the marks of care, of fret, of anxiety, of discontent. They tell of defeat and disheartenment. Yet the love of Christ is meant to transfigure our lives. Paul gives us the secret, when he tells us to be anxious for nothing--but instead to take every troubling thing to God in prayer; and then adds that if we do this, the peace of God shall guard our hearts and our thoughts in Christ Jesus. The peace of God, then, makes shining faces. There is no reason why our dull faces should not shine. "As He was praying, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His clothing became white and dazzling."
We see the Master at prayer again, this time in Gethsemane. It was here that He prepared for His cross. We should notice that His refuge in His exceeding sorrow was prayer, and that, as the sorrow deepened, the refuge still was prayer. "Being in an agony He prayed more earnestly." Prayer is the only refuge in sorrow. The lesson from the garden prayer, is that we should take all the hard things, the anguishes, the insufferable pains, the bitter griefs of our lives--to God in prayer. We may be sure, too, that God will answer. If He does not relieve us of the suffering, He will strengthen us so that we can keep it, and still go on trusting and singing.
No doubt, much of our Lord's Prayer was intercession. We have one or two glimpses of this interceding. He said to Peter in great sadness: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you--that he might sift you as wheat; but I made supplication for you, that your faith fail not." There is a wondrous revealing of our comfort in this for us, when we remember that as our Great High Priest He ever lives to make intercession for us. Another instance of intercession was on the cross, when He prayed, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Not His murderers only--but all men, were included in that prayer of redemption, as the sacrificial blood began to flow.
That last prayer of Jesus was, "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit." Thus His spirit went forth on the wings of prayer into His Father's bosom. So it shall be with us, His friends, when we come to the edge of the great mystery, and cannot see the way. Dying, for a Christian, is but a flying away from earth's passing things--to be with God forever.
