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THE KNEELING CHRISTIAN
by Unknown Christian

It may be just letting your request be made known unto God (Phil. iv. 6). We cannot think that prayer need always be a conflict and a wrestle. For if it were, many of us would soon become physical wrecks, suffering from nervous breakdown, and coming to an early grave.

And with many it is a physical impossibility to stay any length of time in a posture of prayer. Dr. Moule says: “Prayer, genuine and victorious, is continually offered without the least physical effort or disturbance. It is often in the deepest stillness of soul and body that it wins its longest way. But there is another side of the matter. Prayer is never meant to be indolently easy, however simple and reliant it may be. It is meant to be an infinitely important transaction between man and God. And therefore, very often . . . it has to be viewed as a work involving labor, persistence, conflict, if it would be prayer indeed.”

No one can prescribe for another. Let each be persuaded in his own mind how to pray, and the Holy Spirit will inspire us and guide us how long to pray. And let us all be so full of the love of God our Savior that prayer, at all times and in all places, may be a joy as well as a means of grace.

Shepherd Divine, our wants relieve
In this and every day;
To all Thy tempted followers give
The power, to watch and pray.
The spirit of interceding grace
Give us the faith to claim;
To wrestle till we see Thy face
And know Thy hidden Name.

CHAPTER 8: DOES GOD ALWAYS ANSWER PRAYER?

WE now come to one of the most important questions that any man can ask. Very much depends upon the answer we are led to give. Let us not shrink from facing the question fairly and honestly. Does God always answer prayer? Of course, we all grant that He does answer prayer — some prayers, and sometimes. But does He always answer true prayer. Some so-called prayers He does not answer, because He does not hear them. When His people were rebellious, He said, “When ye make many prayers, I will not hear” (Isa. i. 15).

But a child of God ought to expect answers to prayer. God means every prayer to have an answer; and not a single real prayer can fail of its effect in heaven.

And yet that wonderful declaration of St. Paul: “All things are yours, for ye are Christ’s” (I Cor. iii. 21), seems so plainly and so tragically untrue for most Christians. Yet it is not so. They are ours, but so many of us do not possess our possessions. The owners of Mount Morgan, in Queensland, toiled arduously for years on its barren slopes, eking out a miserable existence, never knowing that under their feet was one of the richest sources of gold the world has ever known. There was wealth, vast, undreamt of, yet unimagined and unrealized. It was “theirs,” yet not theirs.

The Christian, however, knows of the riches of God in glory in Christ Jesus, but he does not seem to know how to get them.

Now, our Lord tells us that they are to be had for the asking. May He indeed give us all a right judgment in “prayer-things.” When we say that no true prayer goes unanswered we are not claiming that God always gives just what we ask for. Have you ever met a parent so foolish as to treat his child like that? We do not give our child a red-hot poker because he clamors for it! Wealthy people are the most careful not to allow their children much pocket-money.

Why, if God gave us all we prayed for, we should rule the world, and not He! And surely we would all confess that we are not capable of doing that. Moreover, more than one ruler of the world is an absolute impossibility!

God’s answer to prayer may be “Yes,” or it may be “No.” It may be “Wait,” for it may be that He plans a much larger blessing than we imagined, and one which involves other lives as well as our own.

God’s answer is sometimes “No.” But this is not necessarily a proof of known and wilful sin in the life of the suppliant, although there may be sins of ignorance. He said “No” to St. Paul sometimes (II Cor. xii. 8, 9). More often than not the refusal is due to our ignorance or selfishness in asking. “For we know not how to pray as we ought” (Rom. viii. 26). That was what was wrong with the mother of Zebedee’s children. She came and worshipped our Lord and prayed to Him. He quickly replied, “Ye know not what ye ask” (Matt. xx. 22). Elijah, a great man of prayer, sometimes had “No” for an answer. But when he was swept up to glory in a chariot of fire, did he regret that God said “No” when he cried out “O Lord, take away my life”?

God’s answer is sometimes “Wait.” He may delay the answer because we are not yet fit to receive the gift we crave — as with wrestling Jacob. Do you remember the famous prayer of Augustine — “O God, make me pure, but not now”? Are not our prayers sometimes like that? Are we always really willing to “drink the cup” — to pay the price of answered prayer? Sometimes He delays so that greater glory may be brought to Himself.

God’s delays are not denials. We do not know why He sometimes delays the answer and at other times answers “before we call” (Isa. lxv. 24). George Muller, one of the greatest men of prayer of all time, had to pray over a period of more than sixty-three years for the conversion of a friend! Who can tell why? “The great point is never to give up until the answer comes,” said Muller. “I have been praying for sixty-three years and eight months for one man’s conversion. He is not converted yet, but he will be! How can it be otherwise? There is the unchanging promise of Jehovah, and on that I rest.” Was this delay due to some persistent hindrance from the devil? (Dan. x. 13). Was it a mighty and prolonged effort on the part of Satan to shake or break Muller’s faith? For no sooner was Muller dead than his friend was converted — even before the funeral.

Yes, his prayer was granted, though the answer tarried long in coming. So many of George Muller’s petitions were granted him that it is no wonder that he once exclaimed, “Oh, how good, kind, gracious and condescending is the One with Whom we have to do! I am only a poor, frail, sinful man, but He has heard my prayers ten thousands of times.”

Perhaps some are asking, How can I discover whether God’s answer is “No” or “Wait”? We may rest assured that He will not let us pray sixty-three years to get a “No”! Muller’s prayer, so long repeated, was based upon the knowledge that God “willeth not the death of a sinner”; “He would have all men to be saved” (I Tim. ii. 4).

Even as I write, the postman brings me an illustration of this. A letter comes from one who very rarely writes me, and did not even know my address — one whose name is known to every Christian worker in England. A loved one was stricken down with illness. Is he to continue to pray for her recovery? Is God’s answer “No,” or is it, “Go on praying — wait”? My friend writes: “I had distinct guidance from God regarding my beloved . . . that it was the will of God she should be taken . . . I retired into the rest of surrender and submission to His will. I have much to praise God for.” A few hours later God took that loved one to be with Him in glory.

Again may we urge our readers to hold on to this truth: true prayer never goes unanswered. If we only gave more thought to our prayers we should pray more intelligently. That sounds like a truism. But we say it because some dear Christian people seem to lay their common sense and reason aside before they pray. A little reflection would show that God cannot grant some prayers. During the war every nation prayed for victory. Yet it is perfectly obvious that all countries could not be victorious. Two men living together might pray, the one for rain and the other for fine weather. God cannot give both these things at the same time in the same place!

But the truthfulness of God is at stake in this matter of prayer. We have all been reading again those marvelous prayer-promises of our Lord, and have almost staggered at those promises — the wideness of their scope, the fullness of their intent, the largeness of the one word “Whatsoever.” Very well! “Let God be found true” (Rom. iii. 4). He certainly will always be “found true.”

Do not stop to ask the writer if God has granted all his prayers. He has not. To have said “Yes” to some of them would have spelt curse instead of blessing. To have answered others was, alas! a spiritual impossibility — he was not worthy of the gifts he sought. The granting, of some of them would but have fostered spiritual pride and self-satisfaction. How plain all these things seem now, in the fuller light of God’s Holy Spirit!

As one looks back and compares one’s eager, earnest prayers with one’s poor, unworthy service and lack of true spirituality, one sees how impossible it was for God to grant the very things He longed to impart! It was often like asking God to put the ocean of His love into a thimble-heart! And yet, how God just yearns to bless us with every spiritual blessing! How the dear Savior cries again and again, “How often would I . . . but ye would not”! (Matt. xxiii. 37.) The sadness of it all is that we often ask and do not receive because of our unworthiness — and then we complain because God does not answer our prayers! The Lord Jesus declares that God gives the Holy Spirit — who teaches us how to pray — just as readily as a father gives good gifts to his children. But no gift is a “good gift” if the child is not fit to use that gift. God never gives us something that we cannot, or will not, use for His glory (I am not referring to talents, for we may abuse or “bury” those, but to spiritual gifts).

Did you ever see a father give his baby boy a razor when he asked for it, because he hoped the boy would grow into a man and then find the razor useful? Does a father never say to his child, “Wait till you are older, or bigger, or wiser, or better, or stronger”? May not our loving heavenly Father also say to us, “Wait”? In our ignorance and blindness we must surely sometimes say,
In very love refuse
Whate’er Thou seest
Our weakness would abuse.