10. The Nature and Content of Prayer

The Nature and Content of Prayer

It is the simple truth to say that the Hebrews have taught the world how to pray. Prayer is an instinct of the unsophisticated soul. Whether to gods or saints or demons or the dead, all nations have prayed. But the prayers differ as the religions differ; and as the Hebrews are the world’s acknowledged masters in religion, it is from their prayers that we have by far the most to learn. Ye shall not pray as the Gentiles do. Hebrew prayer itself, as we have seen, under­went development, and the difference that Jesus made was very great; but it is still to the Bible, to the Old Testament and New alike, that we must go when we would learn to speak with God. Old Testament aspirations were fulfilled rather than abolished by Christ. The piety of the millennium which preceded Him has a value of its own, and a value even for us. For more than twenty centuries men have lifted up their hearts to God on the words of the Hebrew Psalter, because there they have found their deepest thoughts most finely interpreted and expressed; and the older the world grows, the more profound and wonderful seems that prayer which Christ taught His disciples. These things can never be outgrown or superseded; they are eternal, because they are simple and true. We know not how to pray as we ought, but the Bible may be our teacher and guide. For prayer, though in its nature spontaneous, may be directed; though an instinct, it may, like any other instinct, be trained. “One of His disciples said unto Him, ‘ Lord, teach us to pray.’” So prayer can be taught, and the modern Church has much to gain by recalling her prayers to the Biblical standard. We shall there­fore call attention to a few considerations, suggested by a study of Biblical prayer, which may help to guide the devotional usage—whether public or private —of today.

One of the most remarkable phenomena—confined, however, in the nature of the case, practically to the Old Testament—is the prominence of history in prayer, alike in prayers of petition, thanksgiving and confession. The worshippers beseech the Divine help, because it has already been in the past so signally manifested; or they offer their thanks for the Divine guidance of the nation in ages long gone by; or they look at the sins which they confess in the light of the ancient goodness of God of which they have proved themselves so miserably unworthy. But the striking thing is this: they do not content themselves with vague assertions of that goodness; they relate it definitely—sometimes briefly, and sometimes very elaborately—to their national history.

It is done briefly, but characteristically, by Jehosh­aphat when, in his prayer for help in battle, he says, “Didst not Thou, O our God, drive out the in­habitants of this land before Thy people Israel, and give it to the seed of Abraham Thy friend for ever?” etc. (2 Chronicles 20:7-8). Similarly, Judas Maccabaeus, before a battle, begins his prayer for victory thus: “O Savior of Israel, who didst quell the violence of the mighty man by the hand of Thy servant David, and didst give the host of aliens into the hands of Jonathan, the son of Saul, and his armor bearer” (1Ma 4:30). David, in a prayer of thanksgiving, is also represented as recalling the goodness of God in the time of the Exodus: “What one nation in the earth is like Thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem unto Himself for a people, and to make Him a name, and to do terrible things for Thy land, before Thy people, whom Thou didst redeem to Thee out of Egypt, from the nations and their gods?” (2 Samuel 7:23) A very beautiful and striking illustration of this phenomenon occurs in the prayer of thanksgiving which is offered for the first fruits (Deuteronomy 26:5-9). The prayer at first seems curiously out of place in this connection: it is a tolerably minute summary of the facts of Israel’s early history. “A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and he became there a nation, great, mighty and populous. And the Egyptians dealt ill with us and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage, and we cried unto Jehovah, the God of our fathers, and Jehovah heard our voice and saw our affliction, and our toil and our oppression; and Jehovah brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders; and He hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” Then at the end come the simple words: “And now, behold hold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the ground, which Thou, O Jehovah, hast given me.” In many ways, this prayer is most characteristic and instructive. Behind it lies the thought: We love Him, because He first loved us. It further sug­gests that gratitude must be expressed, not in word only, but also in deed. It links the ages each to each: God did that then, therefore we do this now. It keeps alive the memory of the gracious past. But the point with which we are immediately concerned is that the goodness of God is vividly brought before the mind of the worshipper by a historical recital. The great words “goodness and loving-kindness” were not allowed to degenerate into empty phrases, but they were filled with radiant and indisputable histori­cal fact. So much is this the case that some of the longer Psalms (Psalms 78; Psalms 105-106) practically form a brief history of early Israel. The past was ever with them: it was kept alive not only in history, but in prayer.

Similarly, in the great prayer—half petition, half confession—of Isaiah 63:7 to Isaiah 64:12, history holds a prominent place. The speaker begins by saying, “I will make mention of the loving-kindnesses of Jeho­vah, and the praises of Jehovah, according to all that Jehovah hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which He hath bestowed on them according to His mercies, and according to the multitude of His loving-kindnesses.” But he does not leave the matter there. He at once proceeds, through seven verses, to amplify the Divine mercies and loving-kindnesses, by recalling the days of Moses and the divided sea.

One would hardly expect a strongly historical element in prayers of confession. It would be natural to suppose that the sinner would be occupied chiefly with the thought of his own sin. Not so Hebrew con­fession. In it the sinner thinks also of that goodness against which he has sinned, and that goodness is writ large in history. Three-fourths of the very elaborate confession of Ezra in Nehemiah 9 are occupied with a historical summary (For a similarly lengthy summary, cf. 2Es 3:24; 2Es 3:27) which passes in review the call of Abraham, the affliction of the fathers in Egypt and their deliverance, the giving of the law on Sinai, the ordinance of the Sabbath, the Divine guidance through the wilderness, the manna and the water from the rock, the obstinacy, disobedience and idolatry of the people, their victories over foreign kings, their conquest of Canaan.

These prayers hold vividly before the people the goodness of God as manifested in the national history, and they keep alive the names of national heroes, like Abraham and Moses. It must not be forgotten, of course, that these are all special prayers, and we cannot from them infer with certainty the contents of average Hebrew prayer. Indeed, more or less is this true of all the Biblical prayers: the only prayers pre­served are those which, for some reason or other, were considered to be significant or important. Neverthe­less, a feature so conspicuous among prayers so different was probably a general feature of the longer prayers, at least of public prayers. This becomes all the more probable, when we consider the universal emphasis of the Old Testament on history. Wherever else God is, He is there. A very large proportion of the book is taken up with historical narrative, which lovingly follows the sternly gracious purpose of God throughout the centuries. His mercy was not only in the heavens; it was the most palpable of the realities that walked the earth. And the people were never weary re­minding themselves of it: it was a spur alike to grati­tude and penitence.

We have heard with our ears, Our fathers have told us What work Thou didst in their days, In the days of old. (Psalms 44:1) Has the Old Testament not something here to teach the modern Church? Might not that emphasis on history, which so largely inspired Hebrew prayer, find a more adequate recognition in modern prayer? It goes without saying that any influence which would tend to encourage a narrow nationalism would be al­together alien to the religion of Christ, in which there can be neither Jew nor Greek, French nor German, British nor American, but man as spirit stands before his God, who is also spirit. But the religious value of history is no less than ever. God is the same today as yesterday, and His kingdom is achieved among the kingdoms of this world. Its subjects are men who do His will, and its history is the story of the march of His will through time. A prayer must indeed never degenerate into a sermon or historical narrative; it must always remain an address to God. But why may not men, out of a full heart, thank God for those of the fathers who, like Abraham and Moses, nobly did His will, or who were called to conspicuous service in the older time?

Why, when they are met in the sanctuary to meditate on His goodness, may they not gratefully, and more frequently than they do, recall what they have read, and their fathers have told them, the work that He did in their days, in the days of old? This would not be to encourage a nationalistic or materialistic reli­gion: it would be to recognize the inevitable contact of religion with history.

Again, it may be questioned whether—especially ’in the light of the New Testament—much of the cus­tomary language regarding the power of prayer does not need to be revised. Prayer is said to move the hand that rules the world, and the implication fre­quently is that, if it only be persistent enough, the petition cannot be withheld. But what of Jesus and Paul? Surely never did more earnest or persistent prayers rise to God than that the cup might pass and the thorn be removed. For these things each prayed three times; yet in the literal sense the prayers were not answered. The cup did not pass, it was drunk to the dregs; and the flesh was still tormented by the thorn.

Prayer is therefore not omnipotent in the sense that, whatever it earnestly asks, it can secure. It must sincerely subordinate itself to the will of God; and then, whatever be the issue, it must remain con­tent, believing that the will is done. The Divine will is the thing that triumphs, and is the only thing that is sure of its triumph. To that all aspirations and petitions must be related, and the value of prayer lies partly in this, that it compels a deliberate reference of earthly life, with its activities and ambitions, to the heavenly will. In prayer the suppliant is compelled to look at himself, not as others see him, but as God sees him. And further, from out the innumerable uncertainties of his own life he looks at God the cer­tain, the eternal, the unchangeable. Its value is therefore inestimable. It humbles him by revealing to him the truth about himself. It clears his mind of false ambitions, by letting him feel the emptiness of all that is not eternal. It cultivates in him a temper of quietness and confidence; for, in true prayer, his will is in glad and solemn harmony with the omnipo­tent will of God: the peace and strength of God come back upon him. Whatever else prayer may do, these things at least it does; and surely this is much. It might be better then to speak of the influence of prayer than of its power. Power, properly under­stood, would not be an inappropriate term; but it too easily deflects attention to external and material effects and loses sight of that more mysterious trans­formation of the soul within. As He was praying, the fashion of His countenance was altered. There, in a figure, is the true effect of prayer. For the transfigured countenance is but the outward expression of the inward transfiguration of the spirit, which is effected by prayer; and then any kind of work may be quietly attempted and trium­phantly done. The soul is sure of itself and its God; and, with immovable confidence it can go down from the mount to face the devils on the plain. It is literally true that certain kinds can come out by nothing but by prayer. They yield to the touch only of the man with the transfigured face, the man who has won his soul by patient prayer. It is the trans­figured man who transfigures the world. It is he whom no shouts of demons can appall, he who rids the world of its devils, he who does the work which the prayerless cannot do. So prayer has its power as well as its influence. Its effects are visible not only in the man within but in the world without. This is one of the most indubitable effects of prayer —to possess the soul with a habitual peace and con­fidence, which are especially conspicuous in the midst of danger and difficult duty. Let your requests be made known unto God; and the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall stand sentry over your hearts and your thoughts (Php 4:6-7). This effect of prayer is repeatedly illustrated in the Bible. It is quite clear that Nehemiah’s brief silent prayer heartened him to proffer his bold request to Artaxerxes (Nehemiah 2:4), just as Jeremiah was heartened when the thought of his youth and inex­perience tempted him to recoil from the mission to which he felt himself divinely impelled. The heavenly voice whispered, Be not afraid, for I am with thee (Jeremiah 1:8); and with that confidence in his heart he quietly faced the surging crowd in the temple and the fanatical priests and prophets who thirsted for his blood (Jeremiah 26:15).

So, throughout those dreary days and nights upon the sea and amid the impending terrors of shipwreck, Paul remains clear and calm. It was the man who had stayed his soul on God that was able to issue practical orders to his confused companions, and who succeeded in inspiring them with a calmness like his own. He gave thanks to God in the presence of all, and then they were all of good cheer (Acts 27:35-36). And through that other notable prayer, which was not answered, for the removal of the thorn, he won a deeper peace and a richer experience of the grace of Christ (2 Corinthians 12:9). Prayer can never be in vain: it calms, strengthens and purifies the soul of the man who offers it.

Most of all is this power of prayer illustrated by Gethsemane. At first the prayer of Jesus is: “If it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me; never­theless not as I will, but as Thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39). The desire that the cup should pass is terrible in its reality: the prayer is offered with strong crying and tears. But, as the awful struggle proceeds, this prayer merges in the other, “If this cup cannot pass away except I drink it, Thy will be done” (Matthew 26:42). The first cry is, “Save me from this hour” (John 12:27); but the last is, “Father, glorify Thy name” (John 12:28). From the beginning, the deepest de­sire of Jesus was that the will of God be done, but the human will prayed vehemently that the cup should pass. But through the deadly earnestness of His prayer, He reached the absolute harmony of His will with God’s; and He came forth from the garden, calm and triumphant, to face the treachery of a disciple, the fanaticism of the mob, and the jealous cruelty of the priests. And what may be said of petition may also be said of intercession. It is twice blessed: it blesses the man who prays, not less than the man for whom he prays. It is touching to read how often Paul, in spite of his unique experience in the spiritual life, requests his converts to pray for him. Probably here most modern congregations grievously fail. Un­questionably a preacher would be enormously helped if he had reason to believe that he was being sustained by the prayers of his people. In such an atmosphere he could be his best. He would feel that his people had met, in a devout spirit, to worship God and to be helped to the better life, and that criticism was there­fore disarmed; and, other things being equal, he would have a freedom, joy and power, such as is sel­dom possible where the people are apathetic, or at best, bring to the service little more than curiosity.

It is hard to conceive of an influence more likely to preserve in temptation and to strengthen for duty than the knowledge that prayers are offered in our behalf, or even the memory of prayers once offered. The voices, some hushed, that once pled with God for us—voices of father or mother or some faithful friend—plead with us still, and it is hard to resist such a plea. It can wake old and blessed memories, stir a long-slumbering conscience, stifle the incipient passion, quicken the better nature, brace, strengthen and purify. Jesus interceded for Peter that his faith should not fail, and, in a crucial moment, it failed: he denied and cursed and swore. Nevertheless the prayer bore fruit; for afterwards he wept bitterly, and became one of the Master’s mightiest servants. Verily great is the power of intercession. But its power over the man who prays is perhaps even greater and more certain. Intercession is love at prayer. Every true exercise of it deepens our interest in others, and develops in us a sympathy which must have its ultimate effect upon the happiness and well­being of the world. As William Law has said, “Intercession is the best arbitrator of all differences, the best promoter of true friendship, the best cure and preservative against all unkind tempers, all angry and haughty passions.” Besides, the interest in men which lies behind intercessory prayer will, if it be genuine, also be likely to express itself practically. “He who prays to God to make men happy will do what he can to make them happy himself.” He will hope, bear, believe and do all for the man for whom he prays; and so its influence upon himself in restraining im­patient and uncharitable tempers, and its influence, through him, upon the world, will be very great. Not only intercession, but all prayer is fitted to expand the heart; for we pray to our Father, as well as my Father, to our God and my God. The need which a man brings to God in prayer is his own: but in the deepest sense, it is also every other man’s; for, in a word, it is the need of God. In prayer all flesh can come, because between the deepest needs of men there can be no conflict. The house of prayer is for all nations, because in the things that they crave in prayer, national distinctions do not count. Moreover, concerning the foreigner . . . (1 Kings 8:41); every prayer must be offered in this large-hearted spirit. There is a Jewish story of a mother who had two sons, one a potter and one a gardener. The gardener asked her to pray for rain to water his plants, the potter asked her to pray for dry weather to dry his vessels. She loved them both: whom was she to pray for? The moral is that prayer must lie within the realm of common interests. Where two or three are gathered together, that which is individual falls away: one could not deliberately pray for that which he knew would injure some other.

Hence public prayer is less liable to abuse in this direction than private prayer, but even private prayer cannot go far astray, when it is directed to our Father. This is only a warning, reached along another line, that prayer should be predominantly for things spiritual. There can be no conflict of interests so long as men pray that God’s name be hallowed, His king­dom come, and His will be done, that their trespasses be forgiven, that they may be delivered from evil and not led into temptation. The more these prayers of the individual are answered, the better it will be for every one else. Prayers for things temporal must also have their relation to the Kingdom and the Will; and even they will be modest. “Give us this day our daily bread.” That is not much to ask. The range of the prayer is wide, but the needs that it covers are simple; and my neighbor will not be injured if God answers so unambitious a prayer of mine.

Further, prayer is one of the best avenues to self­-knowledge. We do not know how to pray as we ought; but we begin to learn, when we begin to in­terest ourselves in our spiritual welfare, and to under­stand our needs. It is as if we heard a divine voice say, What wilt Thou that I should do unto thee? and we were under the obligation to answer as sincerely, ex­plicitly, and intelligently, as we can. We pray for the things which we miss, the defects which we deplore. Lord, that I may receive my sight. Vague words like “Bless us,” which are not common in Biblical prayer, and which, in any case, had for the Hebrew a more de­finite signification than for us, often only help to hide from us our real needs. Definite prayer has therefore the effect of bringing a man face to face with himself as well as with God. But also with God as well as with himself. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, but it is a more fearful thing not to fall into His hands; for those are gracious arms that will uplift the soul that casts itself upon them. The life that in prayer habitually lets itself be searched by the divine gaze cannot continue in conscious, deliberate sin. As some one has said, either the sin will kill the prayer or the prayer the sin. The purifying influence of sincere prayer is undeniable. One cannot court temptation who has earnestly prayed that he be not led into it: he cannot pamper his baser nature if he has prayed for deliverance from evil. In the world into which his prayer introduces him, these desires stand rebuked and abashed; and, when the prayer is over, and he faces the world again, and meets there and in his own heart a thousand unsought solicitations to evil, there will lie upon him the holy obligation to become a co­worker with God in the answering of his own prayer. The other side of petition is confession. In it, if it be definite enough, we get to know ourselves best of all. But the necessarily general language of public prayer is not sufficiently searching. “Forgive us our debts.” This may mean everything or nothing. It cannot mean much unless we are at the trouble to recall our debts, as we should recall our blessings, one by one. We must call upon our soul and all that is within us to forget not any of His benefits nor any of our own short­comings. True, the real enemy is not our sins, but our sin: it is out of the heart that these things proceed, and therefore the heart that must be renewed. But we learn our sin through its manifestations; and it is by confessing and fighting these that we come to know ourselves, and, by the grace of God which touches the life at its springs, that we overcome ourselves. “If the sins of the present day require a new confession, it must be such a new confession as is proper to itself.” Character has everything to gain by the self-examina­tion which must accompany petition and confession.

We have already seen how peculiarly characteristic of Christianity is thanksgiving. This is one of the last lessons which the individual learns. It is more or less amply recognized in the formal prayers of the Church, but the ordinary individual, if we may judge by the proportion of thanksgiving to petition in his prayers, still stands practically on the level of the Old Testament. Robert Louis Stevenson’s wife says of him: “When he was happy, he felt impelled to offer thanks for that undeserved joy; when in sorrow or pain, to call for strength to bear what must be borne.” It is to be feared that, with most men, the latter art is very much better understood than the former. The impulse to pray is usually a sense of need rather than of grateful and abounding joy. “We beseech Thee to give us that due sense of all Thy mercies that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful.” That such a prayer should be necessary shows our habitual and deep- grained inattention to the goodness of God, so unlike the spontaneous, open-eyed gratitude of the Bible.

If prayers of thanksgiving were commoner, the whole life would be indefinitely enriched. The eye would ever be kept awake and clear for the hundred tokens of a Father’s love that fall unnoticed about our path every day, and the heart would be more sensitive and responsive to the great salvation. We are far enough yet from the enthusiasm of the New Testa­ment. Perhaps indeed that can never be quite re­called. The men who had looked upon the face of Jesus or stood very near Him in history, and who had literally seen the world turned upside down by His gospel, must have been moved, as it is hardly possible for us to be moved, who have been born into an atmo­sphere more than nominally Christian—a world whose type of civilization has, generally speaking, been created by Christianity; a world which is, indeed, far enough from being in all its departments controlled by the Christian spirit, but which nevertheless can show much genuinely Christian thought, activity and aspiration. It may be that in a world so different, that ancient enthusiasm can never be altogether repeated. Nevertheless, the thanksgiving of the New Testament remains an eloquent rebuke to our more sluggish Christianity, and a standard to which it must be con­tinually recalled.