Why isn’t prayer our chief joy?
You have doubtless asked yourself more than once: “What may be the reason that prayer and intercession are not a greater joy and delight?
There may be more than one answer to this question. But the chief answer is undoubtedly: ‘We know God too little. In our prayer, His presence is not waited for as the chief thing on which our heart is set. We think mostly of ourselves, our need and weakness, our desire and prayer. But we forget that in every prayer God must be FIRST, must be ALL.
To seek Him, to find Him, to tarry in His presence, to be assured that His holy presence rests upon us, that He actually listens to what we say, and is working in us—it is this alone that gives the inspiration that makes prayer as natural and easy to us as is the conversation of a child with his father.
And how does one attain this nearness to God and fellowship with Him?
The answer is simple:
We must give God time to make Himself known to us.
Believe with your whole heart that just as you present yourself to God as a supplicant, so God presents Himself to you as the Hearer of your prayer. But you cannot realize this unless you give Him time and quiet.
It is not the multitude or the earnestness of your words in which prayer has its power, but in the living faith
that God Himself is taking you and your prayer into His loving heart.
He Himself will give the assurance that in His time your prayer will be heard.
Make a beg.
Make a beginning
Begin this day with the words:
Unto You O Lord, do I lift my soul.
Bow before Him in stillness, believing that He looks on you and will reveal His presence.
Then repeat the phase:
My soul thirsts for You, the living God.
***
References:
This is a photograph of Andrew Murray’s personal copy of The Secret of Adoration, courtesy the Wellington Museum, South Africa.
Murray, Andrew. The Secret of Adoration. London: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1914.
