By John MacDuff
"This is the confidence we have in approaching God--that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him." 1 John 5:14, 15
There is much to comfort us in these words. When health fails, when prosperity departs, or when our homes become the homes of mourning, we are prone, if we do not watch against the danger, to have our confidence in the power and efficacy of prayer weakened--no, sometimes, for a season, destroyed.
Perhaps we have offered up petitions for health, for plenty, for prosperity in the world, and instead of these things we have had sickness, adversity, and ever-increasing cares and troubles, and we have rashly supposed that our petitions were unheard.
Or, more painful still, perhaps we prayed for the assurance of forgiveness, for a realizing sense of God's love in Christ--for stronger faith--for some precious spiritual blessing or comfort, which we imagined would insure our happiness, peace, joy. But we continued still downcast, sad; faith's grasp was feeble; every wave that dashed against us seemed as if destined to hurl us against the rocks, and our cry of distress was lost amid the roar of the angry elements--"Had not God forgotten to be gracious?" Was it not almost needless to continue praying? Whose case was so urgent, whose danger so imminent, whose need so great as ours? and yet our petitions had met with no response--our entreaties for help had been unavailing?
Such questions our unbelieving hearts frequently suggest, and they render necessary discipline more severe, trying, and long-continued--until we are brought to honor God by fully and implicitly trusting Him.
Three things ought to be ever kept in view with regard to prayer.
First, the range, the extent to which we may go in our petitions at a throne of grace, although vast and soul-satisfying, has yet a boundary-line. It is inscribed with these words--"According to His will."
We are at best but children--willful, erring children--ignorant of what would prove a blessing or a curse to us--often anxious for those things which would prove hurtful, and slow to believe that a painful cross, a heavy affliction--is really the best thing God could send us. Our heavenly Father, who has graciously adopted us in Christ, and means to train us to obedience, self-denial, and submission, while, in the fullness of His love, offering the inestimable treasures of His grace, will only bestow upon us what He knows to be truly and lastingly beneficial to our souls. Therefore His promise of blessing is limited to things which are "according to His will."
But some anxious, trembling one may say, "Surely, to implore the assurance of forgiveness--to entreat the bestowal of pardon through the blood of Christ, to ask for stronger faith, deeper love, livelier hope--to offer such petitions as these--must be 'according to His will.'"
Yes, assuredly! Oh that we would never doubt it--after all that God has done to convince us of His willingness to forgive, to pardon freely, and forever! See page after page of Holy Scripture bright with promises, invitations, entreaties! See the loving Savior, anxious to melt hard and stony hearts--weeping over the impenitent, speaking tenderly to the guilty, the polluted, the vile--giving up His precious life to ransom souls from destruction--grasping, in His last hour, a victim from the power of the enemy, to bear it as a trophy of the victory of redeeming love--and who shall dare say there is unwillingness on the part of God to forgive? Hear these words--"Who is a God like unto you, who pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retains not his anger forever, because he delights in mercy. He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us--He will subdue our iniquities; and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." Listen to the Savior's description of His mission--"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor--he has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." And what was His language of bitter lamentation? "You will not come unto me that you may be saved."
Oh, there is no unwillingness on the part of God! But, alas! there is unbelief on ours. We will not take God at His word--we will persist in rearing barriers where there should be none, and in cherishing doubts and fears when our hearts might be filled with peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
God has given us His word--He bids us lay hold on His promises--He invites us to be reconciled--He urges us to accept forgiveness--He condescends to entreat us in accents of winning tenderness, and sets before us His intense anxiety for our salvation in these words--"God so loved the world, that He gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes on him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
We ourselves, then, are to blame, if we have not the assurance of forgiveness. We will not trust God. We refuse to credit His word. Of this we may be sure--that in praying for the grace of assurance we are doing right. Let us pray on and wrestle with God until there is within us that which we long for. So also in regard to faith, and love, and hope. If we have them not in their vigor, let us not rest satisfied until they are increased. In asking these things, we are asking what is "according to His will."
In many things we are not asking "according to His will." And therefore something else is given--sickness, because it is better for us, in present circumstances, than unbroken health, is the answer to our prayer--adversity, because, perhaps, we are trusting too much to our prosperity, is the gift bestowed. Friends are taken from us, and our hearts are wounded and stricken, because we set them as idols on the altar of our affections, where God must reign supreme. Our petitions were not, "according to His will," and He gave us what He saw to be needful.
Again, we must strive to realize the fact than our prayers have been really heard.
When once we have carefully examined the nature of our requests, and been persuaded that, as far as we know, they are "according to His will," we should simply lay them before the Lord, assured that He not only hears us, but that "we have the petitions that we desired of Him."
Not perhaps the very blessings we asked--not health, plenty, peace, prosperity, freedom from sorrow--at the very time, and in the very way we sought. We must not presume to dictate to God. He hears and answers as a sovereign. But because the highest, choicest blessing which a Christian can desire, and for which he ought to pray most ardently, fervently, and perseveringly, is, to love what God loves, to choose what God chooses, to will what God wills--because this ought ever to be the uppermost petition on his heart--he may be sure that, if he asks it, he will receive it, and all the other blessings he prayed for--up to the extent when their bestowal would hinder the progress of the life of God in the soul.
Christian, rest assured your cry has been heard--be not disturbed and cast down because you have not received precisely the blessing you desired. It was not good for you. You thought it would render you happy--but it would have had no such virtue. That only can make you really happy which has the stamp of God's approval on it, and which is "according to His will." Take what He has sent, be it sickness, loss of friends, loss of property--take it, as what your heavenly Father saw to be needful, and pray that He would, by His Holy Spirit, sanctify it to you--that it may increase your trust in Him, and render you more submissive to His will.
Lastly, we must ever strive to cherish the conviction that earnest, persevering prayer is not merely a privilege and duty, but that it is, through our Lord Jesus Christ, prevalent with God, and is accomplishing its purpose.
When we fail to see the blessing come down which we earnestly prayed for, or when something very different is given us, we are apt to yield to unbelief--and as, perhaps, trial after trial happens, we say with one of old, "All these things are against me."
Christian, does the child, when gazing on an intricate piece of mechanism, understand how wheel fits into wheel, how the one is dependent on the other, and how the very smallest is necessary to accomplish the final result?
Neither can you understand how the various trials and crosses in your life are all working together--combining in conformity with the will of God in carrying on to its accomplishment the sanctification of your nature--until at length you are fitted for a holier, purer dwelling place with your Father and your God.
Remember, "what you know not now--you shall know hereafter," and let this satisfy you. A time will yet come when, if faithful unto death, you will acknowledge with a grateful heart that your prayers have been fully answered, that everything from God was given in deepest love, and that "with Christ Jesus He freely gave you all things." Despond not, even though sorrow upon sorrow be your portion, and the heavy billows of affliction seem ceaselessly to roll over you. Fix the eye of faith on the painless home of light and love, and be cheered by the thought that, following the Savior close in sorrow here--you shall be privileged to follow Him close in bliss hereafter.
Deem it not a "strange thing" that trial has happened unto you. Strange it would have been if you had only joy where your Savior had so much sorrow--if you had a quiet resting-place where He could find no spot whereon to rest His wearied head--if the world had offered you a place of calm and sweet repose when it denied a shelter to your suffering, mournful Lord! No, Christian--not here, not here, can you look for repose, or rest, or freedom from trial--but in that blessed home of tranquility and joy, where the countless ages of eternity, as they roll on, shall never behold the shedding of one single tear, or catch the echo of one faintest sigh. Be this your stay, and let it gladden your every onward step--
"Who loves the cross, and Him who on it died,
In every cloud sees Jesus by his side."
O God, our heavenly Father, grant me grace to submit to Your holy will. You know what discipline I need. You see, O Lord, how much of evil there is in my heart--what unbelief, and fear, and folly--and You know what is needful to remove them. I would desire, good Lord, humbly to acquiesce in Your doings, believing that You are chastening me for my profit. I would bear Your rod, not merely because I cannot resist it, but because I love and trust You. I would sweetly acquiesce and rest in Your will, as well as bow beneath it, and would say, "Good is the word of the Lord." I would take gratefully the blessings You are pleased to send, for I am not worthy of the least of them. And when You deny my petition, and withhold what I ask--oh, strengthen me by Your grace to wait Your pleasure, and still to trust You, assured that the time will come when I shall bless You even for unanswered prayers, for trials, and afflictions, and sorrows, which I would gladly have had removed, but which, blessed be God, were made the means of drawing me nearer to You.
Hear me, O Lord, and grant me Your blessing, for my dear Redeemer's sake. Amen.
"Show me the path where I should walk, O Lord;
point out the right road for me to follow." Psalms 25:4
Your way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be;
Lead me by Your own hand,
Choose out the path for me.
Smooth let it be, or rough,
It will be still the best;
Winding or straight--it matters not,
It leads me to Your rest.
I dare not choose my lot;
I would not if I might;
Choose You for me, my God,
So shall I walk aright.
The kingdom that I seek
Is Yours; so let the way
That leads to it be Yours,
Else surely I shall stray.
O take my cup, and it
With joy or sorrow fill,
As best to You may seem;
Choose You my good and ill.
O choose for me my friends,
My sickness, or my health;
O choose my cares for me,
My poverty, or wealth.
Not mine, not mine the choice,
In things, or great or small;
o be my Guide, my Strength,
My Wisdom, and my All.
--Bonar
