02.24. The Renewing Power of Prayer
Chapter 24 THE RENEWING POWER OF PRAYER.
It seems very strange and foolish in the eyes and to the judgment of worldly wisdom, that actual strength and spiritual benefit are received by human beings in praying to an invisible and silent God. The expressions of relief falling from the lip, are attributed to excitement; while the glowing countenance and overflow and overspread of smiles and tears are accounted for in a philosophical manner very satisfactory to the explainer, though the explanation itself misses the mark by a thousand miles. When the unspiritual outsider would interpret the relief experienced in the observance of this means of grace, by the temporary diversion of the mind from the burden and troubles of the day, he forgets to explain why such abiding peace remains when the prayer is over, and the same daily cares and sorrows come back upon the soul and brood upon the life. The fact is that when the child of God prays he is actually having audience with God, and as he lifts his soul in humble, believing petition to his Maker and Redeemer, the Spirit of God overshadows and comes upon him, there are holy conceptions of life and duty, births of resolution, and influxes of strength and power more than sufficient to meet and overcome every trial and difficulty of the unrolling days and years.
Somehow the connection is made, the wires set up, and the message gets through. Better still, the outstretched hand touches God, and there is an instantaneous and steady flow of the divine life into the fainting, sinking soul, and the spiritually sick, so to speak, rise up to minister to others, and the morally dead stand upon their feet and come forth to gladden and bless mankind. The Bible says if we wait upon the Lord we shall renew our strength. There is no explanation as to how the change is effected from lifelessness to animation and exhilaration, from weakness to vigor and from faintness to force; but we all know that it is done, and have been made to marvel and rejoice thousands of times, over this supernatural happening along the long lonely journey of life. The day of trial came between Sabbaths. There was no church service going on, and no preacher or Christian in sight. The rent was due, the agent had been rough, the pocketbook was empty, the baby was sick, the head as well as the heart had been aching all day, when the faltering discouraged Christian wife or mother knelt behind the empty flour barrel in the little pantry or store room, and while telling the Saviour all about it, and asking for strength, the sweet, delightful, heavenly help came. It swept in an instant all through the soul, seemed to animate and invigorate the whole body, and veritably a new creature with moist, shining eyes, and glowing, happy face went out of the humble little larder back to the care of the children and to the never-ceasing toils and drudgeries of everyday home life. And not one of the children but saw and felt the influence of the change that had taken place.
It seems to the writer that if some great discoverer and creator in the realm of science could make a certain kind of metal plate or ball, which, attached to a post or wall in one of the closets or apartments in the house, needed only to be touched or pressed a minute, when gently but powerfully there would come perfect waves of physical rest and strength to the body--it seems to us that every member of the household would pay regular visits to the room and count it all joy that such a blessed invention was in their dwelling. A being would be a fool indeed to go dragging and pulling himself around in an exhausted condition, when there, under his own roof, was a contrivance which in a moment could make him physically another being, and all he needed to do was to touch it. No such creation is possible to man, but God can, and has, granted us something even more wonderful. For the blessing we write of not only affects in a strange, sweet sense the body, putting an actual physical spring into it, but it lifts the burden from the heart, takes worry from the mind and causes the soul itself to be glad and to rush forward with a new impartation of heavenly power to do or endure according to the will of God.
There is not an apartment in the house, but this wonderful instrument of grace can be found.
God sees to the regulating and working of the machinery. We are told simply to go into the room, and, after we have closed the door, to take down the receiver and go to calling, and we will hear from Heaven. We need only to kneel down beside the bed or over yonder in the shadowy corner behind the wardrobe, when suddenly something honey-like, wine-like, flame-like, takes place in the depths of the soul, and behold one of the Lord’s dispirited, drooping followers has leaped to his feet ready for the burden, prepared for the race and panoplied and eager for any battle.
Surely the great body of Christians in the land have forgotten this marvellous provision of God for our deliverance, and that he has them everywhere and not one will fail us if we observe the conditions of their usage, as laid down in the word of God.
These instruments of grace, these golden plates of glory, which if a man touches or stands upon, send sweet currents of spiritual life and force into the moral being, are fortunately for us to be found in other places besides the room of a house. The Publican stood on one in the outer court of the Temple, where no one in the city or sacred edifice dreamed of its location. And yet so great was its power that as the man cried, "God be merciful to me a sinner," the drooping head was lifted, sins of a lifetime were swept away, the joy of salvation rushed in, and the man went down to his house justified.
Jeremiah to his delight found one able to hold him up in the bottom of a well or pit, in which he had been lowered to die by royal commandment. Deep in the loathsome mud he sank, but right then and there he struck the golden plate; he took down the receiver and began calling upon God. It is recorded that he not only did not sink deeper, but was marvelously sustained and finally lifted up from his dark and fearful surroundings into light and liberty again: Paul found one of these marvellous fixtures of grace in the road to Damascus, and still another in a house on a street called "Straight," in the city of Palms. As he prayed Ananias came with his instruction, the scales fell from his eyes, and he was filled with the Holy Ghost.
Elijah discovered not less than seven of these power workers and life energizers on the brow of Mt. Carmel. As he lingered a while on each one, it is not to be wondered at that when he did commence running toward Jezreel he kept ahead of the horses and everything else.
It seems to be the design of Providence to have the world dotted, if not actually paved, with these helps and uplifters of the soul, so that no matter where a man might be, he need never go down in discouragement and defeat, but lay hold on wire and lever, take up sounder and receiver, and find help and deliverance in every time of need.
We remember a member of our church who was a farmer, and from his constantly shining face, his exultant, triumphant soul, and his beautiful, Christ-like life, we judged that he had some understanding with the Lord whereby long lines of the grace and glory machines had been placed up and down every corn and cotton furrow that he possessed. The writer when a lad for months observed the practice of nightly prayer, mainly through the request of a lady friend. One night he was entertained at the country home of a physician. The house being crowded with company, three or four of the male guests were put in one of the bedrooms. As he, in the presence of the others, knelt to pray, he was greeted by an obstreperous fit of laughter on the part of this doctor. The boy arose from his knees flushed and indignant, and gave the physician a scathing rebuke, which the man keenly felt, but the sad part was that the lad quit praying from that hour. The attack of ridicule was too much for him.
It is very remarkable, and makes one of the strange coincidences in life, the occurrence to which we now call attention. Fully seven or eight years rolled away; the physician moved away from this house, and the writer rented it; and right by the side of the bed, in the identical spot where he had uttered his last prayer, here, after the flight of eight years, he knelt to pray again. The fourth time he went down before God he heard from heaven! The machine had little rest after that. The fact is he increased the number rapidly, having one in each room of the house, and three between the house and the store located a mile away.
One of these was kept in a lovely little valley, a second on the brow of a hill, while the third was in a cottonwood grove. Still a fourth was behind the counter in a dark corner of the store. The reader can imagine the spiritual condition of a man who had the prayer plates or instruments in the house, three on the road to the store, and one in the store, and all faithfully attended to every day.
Suffice to say, that even then, in the beginning of his Christian life, he found that it paid to pray, and to pray much. After the lapse of a quarter of a century he feels like reaffirming with a thousand-fold greater emphasis, the power and efficacy of prayer for every condition of life.
Truly it was not in vain, and it should not be in vain, that the statement was made in the Bible: "Men ought always to pray and not to faint."
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