A Lack of Persistency -- Thoughts on Prayer

          Here, is a great secret of failure.  Concerning this the Scriptures are plain enough.

          It may be difficult to satisfy all minds why one needs to keep asking, or ask long – but the fact is it is so.  Jesus lacked no desire of faith, but He prayed for hours at a time, and for one thing; and again all night.

          And He teaches importunity.  “And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them?”  In the explanation of the prayer He gives His people to offer, he urges the necessity of importunity – “because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.”

          Where prayer involves but two wills it should be a simple thing.  The two wills are God’s and one’s own.  If God has promised a matter, one should be able to apprehend and get it with comparative ease.  If God wills it and the suppliant will it, then the way to the end should be relatively short.

Take for instance the question of salvation – the salvation of pardon, or of purity.  This is the will of God.  Over this there should be no struggle and no waiting or postponement.  It requires no importunity.  There may be all this, but it is not necessary.  God is ready as well as willing and His time is now.  All waiting, or struggle, or even persistency are due to some failure on the human side to come to terms.  God’s face is toward the repentant sinner, to pardon, or toward the trusting believer to purify, and no delay at all is required or even, on God’s part, allowed – now is the accepted time.

Take farther the matter of special grace, or divine leading, or the supply of wisdom, or a hundred other demands that are with us so often and so needful.  When God has so plainly indicated His will in these particular matters, the getting them should be simple because no wills are involved outside these I am mentioning.

--Rev. Charles Fowler, 1912

Mere Form -- Thoughts on Prayer

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Matthew 6:7

          Prayer is lost because of a lack of genuine expectation – it is mere form.

          The only thing which gives prayer its value with God and makes it a thing really relishable upon the part of the offerer, is the element of faith – expecting to win by its use.

          While praying people are few as compared to the population of a given community, still people who pray (taking for instance an entire nation as a whole) make an immense number.  To count heads is to find masses of many who—more or less often and more or less sincerely—pray.  Then to count up the number of prayers offered in a given space of time, is to see that that number would be vast.

          I do not want to be found, or to find myself, taking a least hopeful view of things, but I must respect facts and not close my eyes to situations that actually exist; for how else could one with intelligent sincerity seek to better them?  The facts are:  little is being done in the presence of all this prayer I have mentioned – little done in evangelizing the community at large, or in upbuilding the character of the individual who is himself doing the praying.

          These findings force me to the conclusion that the prayers are largely forms – a sort of perfunctory exercise to keep up religion and endeavor to satisfy one’s conscience.  I do not mean to say that any hypocrisy is intended; by no means would I intimate this; but the real life is gone out on the altar of the soul, while yet people are not ready to give up something of the form of religion.

--Rev. Charles Fowler, 1912

Idols -- Thoughts on Prayer

“Go, consecrate the people. Tell them, ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow; for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There are devoted things among you, Israel. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them.'”  Joshua 7:13

          An unsurrendered thing becomes an idol.  To halt anywhere or over anything shows that that is of more account than God and His will.  If God wants one to run into the neighbors’ house and invite them to meeting, or urge them to give their hearts to God, or receive holiness, and that one declines or refuses and puts the duty or privilege upon the preacher, or some other worker, that prayer for that neighbor is defeated because self-will has come up above the divine will, and has, really, become an idol.

          I read with interest an incident in a certain mission-field.  The resident missionary had repute as being graciously devout and had special power in prayer and specially for the recovery of the sick.

          A cultured heathen had a lovely daughter who was dangerously ill.  The story is that he waited upon the missionary, seeking to have him pray for the recovery of the child.  The missionary told him that he would do so upon one condition, and that was that the heathen should forsake his idols and turn to God.

          This the heathen, after a decided struggle, promised to do.

          The missionary went to prayer.  But the heavens were brass over him and the earth as iron beneath his feet.  Finally he called the heathen-man and said to him, “God hears me pray.  But not this time.  You have not done as you agreed – you have not destroyed your idols.”

After some painful hedging the heathen confessed that while he had put away the idols in general, there was one he had not destroyed.  This the missionary demanded should be done, and it was finally brought out and before his eyes broken to pieces.  Then, the prayer was offered that saved the child.

          This may be a mere story that has no reality in fact.  But, it might be true.  It illustrates the idea I am seeking to here enforce, that prayer that succeeds must have the whole man.  Short of this, it is not sincere.  It simply seeks to make a convenience of one who can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and if we could we would not ask Him, since we have so little in common with Him.

--Rev. Charles Fowler, 1912

Motive -- Thoughts on Prayer

You do not have because you do not ask God.  

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives….

James 4:2-3

          I think God wants His people at their best in all things.

          Take our bodies.  Does God want us ill and lame and used-up prematurely?  In itself, no.  So I think.  I  would not want people thus.  God is as well-wishing as I am, I judge.  If I could, I would make people well.  Had I the power I certainly would do this, and so would all, I am sure.  But, if I had divine wisdom as well as power I would do just as God does.

          There is something better than bodily health.  The headache and back-ache are not worst things.  Character is better than health, and sin is worse than physical pain.

          It is quite evident that the only way God can save the most of us is to let us have physical ills.  Not that He chooses the ills for us, but chooses what those are the means of securing to us, or in keeping from us of evil.

But, my contention is that with a right motive we might be differently circumstanced in just these particulars.

          In one of my charges as a pastor was a young woman of slender frame and precarious health.  She was a wife and mother who had her home to keep and its interests for which to care.  One day, climbing the chamber stairs, she rested half-way up, as she was wont to do.  While sitting on the stair-tread she said: “Oh God I am Thy child.  I love Thee.  I am in Thy service.  Thou canst give me a good and sound body.  Lord, if Thou wilt do this, I will give the added strength to Thee.  I will put no more into home-cares and personal interests, but will expend the new energy in Thy service.”

          Hardly were these words uttered—if uttered they were—when God healed her!  She jumped to her feet, ran up the stairs like a girl and has been a well woman ever since—for years.  And she kept her covenant with God, and is keeping it now.  I know her well.

          Motive!  Motive is vital!  “Ye ask and receive not … that ye may consume it upon your lusts,” upon your own personal gratification.

--Rev. Charles Fowler, 1912