05.08. CHAPTER VIII. Prayer as Dominant Desire

CHAPTER VIII. Prayer as Dominant Desire

DAILY READINGS First Day, Eighth Week And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? have all gifts of healings? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? But desire earnestly the greater gifts. And moreover a most excellent way show I unto you. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 1 Corinthians 12:28-31, 1 Corinthians 13:1.

Note the unfortunate break in this great passage made by a new chapter’s beginning. 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 on love should always be read as an explanation of the verse in 1 Corinthians 12:1-31, "Desire earnestly the greater gifts."

Many reasons for unreality in prayer we have noted, such as perversity of mood, or failure to grasp the individual love of God, or wilful alienation of the life in sin. With one of the deepest troubles in our praying, however, we have not dealt. Our prayers arc often unreal because they do not represent what in our inward hearts we sincerely crave. We ask God for the "greater gifts" which we do not "desire earnestly." For example we pray against some evil habit in our lives, while at the same time we refuse to give up the practices that make the habit easy, or the companion ships in which the habit thrives. We go through the form of entreating God to save us from the sin, but we do not want the answer enough to burn the bridges across which the sin continually comes. Our petition is a lame and in effective whim without driving power. Said "Chinese" Gordon: "I have been thinking over our feelings and how often it is that we are so very insincere even in prayer. . . . We pray for power to give up a certain habit, say evil speaking, and, at the moment of so praying, we have a thought of evil against some one, and we, as it were, whisper to that thought, By and by I will attend to ypu, not now/ and we go on praying against the very act we intend in our hearts to do. All this is insincere and dishonoring."

O God, whose Spirit searcheth all things, and whose love beareth all things, encourage us to draw near to Thee in sincerity and in truth. Save us from a worship of the lips while our hearts are far away. Save us from the useless labour of attempting to conceal ourselves from Thee who searchest the heart.

Enable us to lay aside all those cloaks and disguises which we wear in the light of day and here to bare ourselves, with all our weakness, disease and sin, naked to Thy sight.

Make us strong enough to bear the vision of the truth, and to have done with all falsehood, pretence, and hypocrisy, so that we may see things as they are, and fear no more.

Enable us to look upon the love which has borne with us and the heart that suffers for us. Help us to acknowledge our dependence on the purity that abides our uncleanness, the patience that forgives our faithlessness, the truth that forbears all our falsity and compromise. And may we have the grace of gratitude, and the desire to dedicate ourselves to Thee. Amen. W. E. Orchard.

Second Day, Eighth Week

Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, who would make a reckoning with his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, that owed him ten thousand talents. . . . And the lord of that servant, being moved with com passion, released him, and forgave him the debt. But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow- servants, who owed him a hundred shillings: and he laid hold on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay what thou owest. So his fellow-servant fell down and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay that which was due. So when his fellow-servants saw what was done, they were exceeding sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him unto him, and saith to him, Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou besoughtest me: shouldest not thou also have had mercy on thy fellow-servant, even as I had mercy on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due. So shall also my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts. Matthew 18:23-24, Matthew 18:27-35. The unreality of our praying may be illustrated in our petitions for forgiveness. Nothing may be more superficial than a request for pardon; nothing can be more searching than a genuine experience of penitence. A boy who has sinned and faces the consequence may have a momentary spell of regret; he naturally wishes to have the slate wiped clean. But to be sincerely sorry for his evil itself, rather than for its consequences; to be ashamed of his failure, so that he feels himself a brother of all sinners, and like Richard Baxter, could say of a murderer going to execution, "There but for the grace of God goes Richard Baxter!" how penetrating an experience is that! Consider this expression of penitence from Tagore, the Bengali poet:

"I came out alone on my way to my tryst.
But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?
I move aside to avoid his presence, but I escape him not.
He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger;
he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.
He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame; but
I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company." A man so sincerely ashamed of himself will seek forgiveness and renewal, with a genuine desire that will make his supplications real, and by the very vividness of his own sense of guilt will find it impossible to be unforgiving to any other man. Read again today’s Scripture, and consider the Master’s insistence on that kind of genuineness in our prayers for pardon.

O Searcher of hearts, Thou knowest us better than we know ourselves, and seest the sins which our sinfulness hides from us. Yet even our own conscience beareth witness against us, that we often slumber on our appointed watch; that we walk not always lovingly with each other, and humbly with Thee; and we withhold that entire sacrifice of ourselves to Thy perfect will, without which we are not crucified with Christ, or sharers in His redemption. Oh, look upon our contrition, and lift up our weakness, and let the dayspring yet arise within our hearts, and bring us healing, strength, and joy. Day by day may we grow in faith, in self-denial, in charity, in heavenly-mindedness. And then, mingle us at last zvith the mighty host of Thy redeemed for evermore. Amen. James Martineau (1805-1900).

Third Day, Eighth Week

Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are. While I was with them, I kept them in thy name which thou hast given me: and I guarded them, and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy made full in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth: thy word is truth. As thou didst send me into the world, even so sent I them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word; that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me. John 17:11-21.

Consider another way in which we pray insincerely. We go through the form of praying for our friends. It seems the right thing to do, and it gives us at least a momentary glow of unselfishness. But the prayer does not so rise from a controlling desire for our friends good, that we can be counted on all that day to be thoughtful about their needs, sensitive to their feelings, generous to their faults, glad of their success, and helpful to our utmost in their service. We often do not really care enough about our friends, so that our supplication for them has vital meaning for us and. therefore, for God. As Nolan Rice Best has expressed it. "Like the supreme court of our land, the Supreme Court of heaven passes on no hypothetical matters; the petitioner must have a real case in order to obtain attention."

Think of the Master’s love for his disciples, of the ways he revealed it, of the lengths to which he willingly went in being true to it. The reality of this intercessory prayer in John’s seventeenth chapter goes back to the genuineness of the love out of which it came. The prayer actually represented what the Master sacrificially desired.

O blessed Lord and Saviour, who hast commanded us to love one another, grant us grace that, having received Thine undeserved bounty, we may love every man in Thee and for Thee. We implore Thy clemency for all; but especially for the friends whom Thy love has given to us. Love Thou them, O Thou fountain of love, and make them to love Thee with all their heart, with all their mind, and with all their soul, that those things only which arc pleasing to Thee they may will, and speak, and do. And though our prayer is cold, be cause our charity is so little fervent, yet Thou art rich in mercy. Measure not to them Thy goodness by the dulness of our devotion; but as Thy kindness surpasseth all human affection, so let Thy hearing transcend our prayer. Do Thou to them what is expedient for them, according to Thy will, that they, being always and everywhere ruled and protected by Thee, may attain in the end to everlasting life; and to Thee, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and praise for ever and ever. Amen. Anselm (1033-1109).

Fourth Day, Eighth Week

If I have withheld the poor from their desire,
Or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,
Or have eaten my morsel alone, And the fatherless hath not eaten thereof. . . .
If I have seen any perish for want of clothing,
Or that the needy had no covering;
If his loins have not blessed me,
And if he hath not been warmed with the fleece of my sheep;
If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless,
Because I saw my help in the gate:
Then let my shoulder fall from the shoulder-blade,
And mine arm be broken from the bone. Job 31:16-22. When a man can take words like these on his lips, as a description of his own life, he is prepared sincerely to pray for the poor. We often emphasize the fact that prayer is a powerful builder of character; but the other side of the truth is important, that great character is essential to great praying. A man with a small, mean, self-indulgent life cannot genuinely offer a noble prayer. This is the meaning of the saying that it is easy to commit the Lord’s Prayer to memory, but difficult to learn it by heart. In any man’s entreaty, no matter how great the words, only that much is real which is the expression of his character, the inward quality and habitual desire of his life. When, therefore, pity leads us to ask God’s mercy on the popr, the value of our praying depends on the controlling power of that good desire in our lives. Does the supplication come out of an inward devotion that is to us of serious concern? Can God see in our habitual, systematic care for the poor and support of the agencies that help them, the proof of our prayer’s sincerity?

We beseech Thee, Lord and Master, to be our help and succour. Save those who are in tribulation; have mercy on the lonely; lift up the fallen; show Thyself unto the needy; heal the ungodly; convert the wanderers of Thy people; feed the hungry; raise up the weak; comfort the faint-hearted. Let all the peoples know that Thou art God alone, and Jesus Christ is Thy Son, and we are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture; for the sake of Christ Jesus. Amen. St. Clement of Rome (90 A. D.).

Fifth Day, Eighth Week

Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers, Barnabas, and Symeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen the foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. And as they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work where- unto I have called them. Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. Acts 13:1-4.

Note how this first missionary tour of Paul and his companions was conceived in the spirit of prayer and furthered by prayer’s power. We too have prayed for missions. Per haps we have personal friends on the foreign field and that fact has quickened our sense of obligation to pray for the Cause. But the plain fact often is that while we are offering prayers, we are offering nothing else. We make supplication a substitute for devotion. We do not give to missions with any deep sense of stewardship, but rather treat the Cause of the Kingdom as a charity, to which an occasional dole from our surplus is sufficient. In our inmost desires we are not devotedly set on the triumph of Christ’s cause, so that we seek information about missions, make as generous gifts as we can, and put personal service into strengthening the church as the "home base." In our petitions for the missionaries, how often, as Friar Lawrence phrases it, we are "fooling ourselves with trivial devotions."

O great Lord of the harvest, send forth, we beseech Thee, labourers into the harvest of the world, that the grain which is even now ripe may not fall and perish through our neglect. Pour forth Thy sanctifying Spirit on our fellow Christians abroad, and Thy converting grace on those who are living in darkness. Raise up, we beseech Thee, a devout ministry among the native believers, that, all Thy people being knit together in one body, in love, Thy Church may grow up into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; through Him who died, and rose again for us all, the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Bishop Milman (1791-1868).

Sixth Day, Eighth Week

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
They shall prosper that love thee.
Peace be within thy walls,
And prosperity within thy palaces.
For my brethren and companions sakes,
I will now say, Peace be within thee.
For the sake of the house of Jehovah our God
I will seek thy good. Psalms 122:6-9. In the time of a great war, nothing is more natural than prayer for peace. But of all petitions that arise for peace, how many represent deep and transforming devotion of the life to the cause of human brotherhood? Men pray for peace, and still retain and express those racial prejudices that are one of the most prolific causes of war. They ask for human brotherhood to come, but they are most un- brotherly to the foreigner within their own communities. Women piously frame petitions in behalf of the day when there shall be no "barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all," but all the while they violate every Christian principle in their dealings with their servants, their social inferiors, or the aliens of their city. Their prayers are long-range dreams that do not touch their lives. And least of all do many of us, when we pray for peace, purge our own hearts of that rancor that lies behind all war. "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you" (Ephesians 4:31).

O Lord, since first the blood of Abel cried to Thee from the ground that drank it, this earth of Thine has been defiled with the blood of man shed by his brother’s hand, and the cen turies sob with the ceaseless horror of war. Ever the pride of kings and the covetousness of the strong have driven peace ful nations to slaughter. Ever the songs of the past and the pomp of armies have been used to inflame the passions of the people. Our spirit cries out to Thee in revolt against it, and we know that our righteous anger is answered by Thy holy wrath.

Break Thou the spell of the enchantments that make the nations drunk with, the lust of battle and draw them on as willing tools of death. Grant us a quiet and steadfast mind when our own nation clamors for vengeance or aggression. Strengthen our sense of justice and our regard for the equal worth of other peoples and races. Grant to the rulers of nations faith in the possibility of peace through justice, and grant to the common people a new and stern enthusiasm for the cause of peace. Bless our soldiers and sailors for their swift obedience and their willingness to answer to the call of duty, but inspire them none the less with a hatred of war, and may they never for love of private glory or advancement provoke its coming. May our young men still rejoice to die for their country with the valor of their fathers, but teach our age nobler methods of matching our strength and more effective ways of giving our life for the flag.

O Thou strong Father of all nations, draw all Thy great family together with an increasing sense of our common blood and destiny, that peace may come on earth at last, and Thy sun may shed its light rejoicing on a holy brotherhood of peoples. Walter Rauschenbusch.

Seventh Day, Eighth Week And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house; and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it: or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. And Naboth said to Ahab, Jehovah forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him; for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. 1 Kings 21:1-4.

Supposing that Ahab had said his prayers that night, would it have made much difference what he said in praying? Imagine him rehearsing some formal petitions learned in his childhood; would that have been his real prayer? It is clear that Ahab’s demand on life that night was simply his covetous desire for Naboth’s vineyard. No formal, proper, pious supplication addressed to God could have hidden from the divine insight this deeper fact, that what Ahab really wanted was his neighbor’s field. Consider how often God must so look through our conventionally proper petitions, and in our hearts perceive our unvoiced but controlling wants sometimes as mean, selfish, covetous as Ahab s. These are the deep prayers of our lives our hearts are set upon them and God is not deceived when we tell him in pious phrases that we wish his blessing. Let us consider this week what our hearts really are set on, what are our chief ambitions and desires.

O Eternal God, sanctify my body and soul, my thoughts and my intentions, my words and actions, that whatsoever I shall think, or speak, or do, may be by me designed for the glorification of Thy Name, and by Thy blessing, it may be effective and successful in the work of God, according as it can be capable. Lord, turn my necessities into virtue; the works of nature into the works of grace; by making them orderly, regular, temperate; and let no pride or self-seeking, no covetousness or revenge, no little ends and low imaginations, pollute my spirit, and unhallow any of my words and actions; but let my body be a servant of my spirit, and both body and spirit servants of Jesus; that, doing all things for Thy glory here, I may be partaker of Thy glory hereafter, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667).

COMMENT FOR THE WEEK

Hitherto we have spoken of prayer as a definitely religious act. In using the word we thought of hearts bowed in the presence of God; we thought of shut doors, bent knees, reverent spirits. But in this chapter we must sink down into that realm of human desire, which, like an ocean under separate waves, lies beneath all specially religious petitions. At least during the early portion of this chapter we must think of prayer as quite separable from religion; we must ask not only what our desires are when we bow before God, but what our dominant aims are in daily business; what we are really after in our innermost ambitions; what is our demand on life. Prayer, in this more inclusive sense, is the settled craving of a man’s heart, good or bad, his inward love and determining desire. When the prodigal in Jesus parable said, "Father, give me the portion of thy substance that falleth to me," he was in a real sense praying. His innermost ambition was there expressed. His heart was set on gaining the means that in the end would be his ruin. It was a prayer resolutely directed toward evil, but it was prayer. In this sense, Columbus search for America was prayer; Edison’s long attempt to find the secret of incandescence was prayer; Paul’s ambition to found Christian churches and Napoleon’s ambition to rule Europe both were prayers. Not alone the woman who pleads with the reluctant judge for justice, but the prodigal seeking from his father the means of dissipation, is praying; and any man who after money or fame or pleasure insistently directs his course, has in his dominant desire the prayer that shapes his life. We must accept for a while the fruitful definition which Mrs. Browning gives us, "Every wish, with God, is a prayer."

II

One immediate result of this point of view is a clear perception that everybody is praying. Prayer regarded as a definite act of approach to God may be shut out from any life. But prayer regarded as desire, exercised in any realm and for anything, at once includes us all. In this general sense we pray without ceasing. We are hunger-points in the universe; the elemental fact in every human life is desire. To a man who disclaims any act of prayer we may retort, "Your life is an organized prayer. Your body craves food, your mind craves knowledge, your affection craves friendship, your spirit craves peace and hope. You do not pray? Rather every stroke of work and every purposeful thought are endeavors to satisfy inward prayers."

Ordinarily prayer is regarded as the act of a man’s best hours. But in this deeper sense men pray in their worst hours too. Prayer may be either heavenly or devilish. When we think of a man’s dominant desire as in very truth his prayer, we see that Gehazi, with covetous eyes following Naaman to filch his wealth, is praying; that David, with licentious heart putting Uriah at the front of the battle, is praying; that the prodigal seeking the means of his own ruin is praying. None ever found heaven, here or anywhere, without prayer the uplift of a settled desire after God and righteousness. And none ever found hell, here or anywhere, without prayer the dead set and insistent craving of the heart after evil. In any group of men, you may not in this sense divide those who pray from those who do not. All are praying the prayer of dominant desire. The great ques tion is: what are they after? what is their demand on life?

III

It is to be noted, also, that prayer in this sense is the inward measure of any man’s quality. Living beings reveal their grade in the scale of existence by their wants. Inani mate things want nothing. Stones and clods are undisturbed by any sense of lack. The faintest glimmering of life, how ever, brings in the reign of want. Even in some one-celled Amoeba rolling about in search of food, the presence of life means a hunger which is the rudiment of prayer. And from these dim beginnings of instinctive need to the spiritual demands of sage and saint, the extent and quality of a being’s wants are a good measure of his life. In the difference between a savage, wanting nothing but nakedness, a straw-hut, and raw food to content him, and one of us, demanding conveniences that lay tribute on the ends of the earth, our material progress can be measured. In the difference between an African dwarf, with no interests beyond his jungle’s edge, and a modern scientist beating the wings of his enquiry against the uttermost bars of the uni verse, we can gauge our intellectual growth. In the difference between a pagan with his fetish, and Paul saying of his life with Christ, "I press on," our spiritual enlargement is measured. The greater a man is, the wider and deeper and finer are his desires. His prayer is the measure of him. What it takes to meet his need is the gauge of his size. Men come into life as they move into strange cities and at once begin praying. Some ask for the city’s places of vulgar amusement or of vice; some for the best music and the finest art; some for low companionship, others for good friends; and some for the centers of social service and the temples of God. So each man prays and as he prays he reveals his quality. No man can escape the prayer of dominant desire, nor evade the inevitable measurement of his life by his prayer.

IV This truth becomes very serious when we face a further development of it: that the prayer of dominant desire always tends to attain its object. This is true, in the first place, be cause a central craving organizes all the faculties of our lives about itself and sets mind and hands to do its bidding. Of the three ways in which men cooperate with God, working, thinking, and praying, a cursory view might suggest that praying is a somewhat superfluous addition; that, at least, the other two plainly belong first in importance. On the contrary the prayer of dominant desire habitually precedes thought and work. We think and labor because in our innermost heart we have prayed first, because some Desire is in us, calling to our minds, "Come, bring me this!" and ordering our hands, "Go bring me that!" Desire is the elemental force in human experience. A man wants money. That is his real demand on life his prayer. How his mind, then, puts on servile livery to wait on his dominant desire! How quick his wit becomes, how sinewy his thought in the service of his prayer 1 Wherever men concentrate their wills, apply their minds and submit to toil, back of this visible consequence is dominant desire. If Bismarck stops at nothing in amalgamating the German Empire, an ambition is in the saddle "You may hang me," he said, "so long as the rope you do it with binds Germany to the Prussian throne." And if Burns writes incomparable Scotch lyrics, we must trace his labor back to his prayer:

"E’en then a wish (I mind its pow r),
A wish that to my latest hour
Shall strongly heave my breast,
That I for poor auld Scotland’s sake
Some useful plan or book could wake,
Or sing a song at least."

Dominant desire gathers up the scattered faculties, concenters the mind, nerves the will, and drives hard toward the issue. It always tends to achieve its end. As John Burroughs put it, "If you have a thing in mind, it is not long before you have it in hand." This prayer of dominant desire, however, tends to achieve its object, not merely because it concentrates the powers within the man, but because it calls into alliance with it forces from without the man. Wherever there is low pres sure in the atmosphere, thither the wind rushes to fill the need. So the cravings of men create low-pressure areas and, from without, help blows in to the fulfilment of their desires. This is easily illustrated in the social life, for in every enter prise now on foot in the world, men are endeavoring to supply other men’s desires churches to meet the desire for worship, saloons to meet the craving for drink, schools to supply the thirst for knowledge. Behind every organization lies a craving. Human wants are the open bays that call the sea of human effort in. This truth is just as evident in the life of the individual. When a man craves vicious pleasure, low companions inevitably drift to him from every side; low books that pure minds pass unobserved, flow in to satisfy his appetite. His prayer creates a call that is answered by everything kindred to his want. As a whirlwind catches up the adjacent air into its vortex, so a man’s desire calls in the congenial forces of his environment. To the prodigal, doubtless, every evil influence in the village came by spiritual gravitation to further his evil purpose, until at last his dominant desire drew his father in. The very patrimony which was meant to be his blessing he used in furtherance of his controlling passion until it proved his curse. To translate the story at once into the terms of our experience with God, the universe itself responds to a man’s insistent demands upon it. Even the forces of the Spiritual World align themselves, however reluctantly, with a man’s controlling prayer. He can create a back eddy in the river of God’s will, and the very waters that would have helped him go straight on, will now swirl around his dominant desire.

Here, then, is one of the most revealing and startling aspects in which the meaning of prayer may be considered: we all are praying the prayer of dominant desire, our quality is measured by it; and because it both engages in its service our inward powers and calls to its furtherance forces from without, it tends with certainty to achieve its end. When from this general consideration of prayer as desire, we move up to the more usual thought of prayer as the soul’s definite approach to God, we gain outlooks on our subject that no other road so well affords. We see clearly that many of the speeches addressed to God that we have called our prayers are not real prayers at all. They are not our dominant desires. They do not express the inward set and determination of our lives. What we pray for in the closet is not the thing that daily we are seeking with undiscourageable craving. It is not difficult to pray with the lips for renewed character and serviceable life, for social justice and the triumph of the Gospel. The Bible shows us in many a familiar passage what we ought to pray for. The liturgies of the churches too are beautifully eloquent with prayers that welled up from sincerely aspiring hearts, and we readily can frame petitions that copy the letter of the churches prayers. A man in this superficial sense may gain the trick of public supplication. His prayers are eloquent and beautiful, they are verbal aspiration after most worthy things. But as with "Solomon’s Prayer" at the dedication of the temple, there is an appalling hiatus between the requests publicly made and the manifest desires of the man who prays. Prayer that is not dominant desire is too "weak to achieve anything. Any loitering student can cheaply pray to be learned; any idler in the market place can pray to be rich; any irresolute dodger of duty can pray for a vigorous character. But such praying is not really prayer.

"Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast." This perception of the nature of true prayer as dominant desire addressed to God, lights up two important matters. For one thing it adds a significant contribution to our thought on unanswered prayer. It suggests that while a man’s out ward petition may be denied, his dominant desire, which is his real prayer, may be granted. Parents for example pray for their children’s character and usefulness. They ask that godliness and public-mindedness may make their sons and daughters men and women of spiritual distinction. Such supplications are eminently worthy; but too often, proper as they are, they do not represent the parent’s dominant desire. The real wish that controls decisions, that creates the atmosphere of the home and shapes the character of the children, is the parents ambition for the children’s wealth or social success. There lies the family’s masterful craving. Now as between the spoken prayer and the dominant desire, is there any question which will be answered? The fact is that the real prayer of that family tends inevitably to be answered. Many a man would have to confess that for all his denied petition, he had gotten what his heart was inwardly set upon. The controlling passion in any life draws an answer, some times with appalling certainty.

Men are given to complaining of unanswered prayer, but the great disasters are due to answered prayers. The trouble with men is that so often they do get what they want. When the prodigal in the far country came to himself, friends gone, reputation gone, will-power almost gone, to find himself poor, hungry, feeding swine, he was suffering from the consequence of an answered prayer, a dominant desire fulfilled. So Lot wanted Sodom, and got it; Ahab craved Naboth’s vineyard, and seized it; Judas desired the thirty pieces, and obtained them. The Bible is full of answered prayers that ruined men. The power of dominant desire is terrific. Again and again in history we see the old truth come true: "He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul!" (Psalms 106:15).

"O Gracious Lord, how blind we are,
On our own ruin bent!
Make not thine answer to our prayer
Our bitterest punishment!
"For to importunate approach
Persistent in its wrong,
Thou grantest its deluded wish
To make thy warning strong."

VI This perception of the nature of prayer as dominant desire also lights up one of the most notable causes of failure in praying insincerity. The Master laid reiterated emphasis upon sincerity in prayer. He meant that the petition offered must be the genuine overflow of inward desire. The fault of the Pharisees who prayed on the corners was not that they were asking for unworthy things. Their petitions were doubt less excellent, springing out of scriptural ideas and couched in scriptural language. But the prayers did not represent the inward and determining wishes of the men. The petitions were not sincere. The lives of the Pharisees blatantly advertised that their habitual ambitions did not tally with their occasional supplications. When the Master bids us make prayer private, to think of God when we pray as "the Father who seeth in secret," to use no futile and repetitious formulas but to go at once to the pith of our want (Matthew 6:5 ff), he is making a plea for sincerity. Prayer to him is the heart, with all its most genuine and worthy desires aflame, rising up to lay hold on God. It is no affair of hasty words at the fag-end of a day, no form observed in deference to custom, no sop to conscience to ease us from the sense of religious obligations unfulfilled. Prayer is the central and determining force of a man’s life. Prayer is dominant desire, calling God into alliance. The fact that we do not stand on street corners to perform our devotions ought not to blind us to the subtle temptation by which, even in private, we are led into theatrical, insincere praying. We pray as we think we ought to. We ask for blessings that we feel are properly to be asked for, graces that we should want, whether we do or not. We mask our selves behind an imaginary personage ourselves disguised in court clothes and asking from God the things which we presume God would like to be asked to give. We cry as St. Augustine did, "O Lord, make me pure"; and then we hear our real self add as his did, "but not now!" How much such praying there is and how utterly ineffective! It is not real. We have not at the center of our lives controlling desires so worthy that we can ask God to further them and so earnest that our prayers are the spontaneous utterance of their urgency. In the last chapter we spoke of such petitions as "Thy kingdom come," which for nearly twenty centuries has been the prayer of the church. But how many have really prayed it? In how many has it been the dominant desire? Economists describe what they call "effective demand." It is the demand of those who not only need commodities, but who are willing and able to pay the price. Only when a petition becomes an "effective demand" is it real prayer. When a man rehearses all the blessings he has prayed for himself and the world, he may well go on to ask whether he really wishes the prayers granted. Is he willing to pay the price? The great servants of the Kingdom in history always have been men of prayer and the implication is sometimes suggested that praying would make us similarly serviceable. But this essential element should never be forgotten, that the great servants of the Kingdom were men of powerful prayer because they were men of dominant desires for whose fulfilment they were willing to sacrifice anything. Paul, Carey, Living stone, and all their spiritual kin praying for the triumph of Christ with all their hearts and hurling their lives after their prayers; St. Augustine at last really praying for purity, until the answer involved tearing loose the dearest ties of his past life these are examples of costly praying which achieves re sults. This is not prayer called in to eke out what is lacking in an otherwise contented life; this is life centering in and swung round prayer like planets round the sun. Prayer be comes serious business when it becomes dominant desire. We stand there at life’s center, at the springs of its motive and the sources of its power. A cursory reading of the Beatitudes awakens surprise be cause prayer is not mentioned there. How could the Master sum up the benedictions of the spiritual life and omit prayer from his thought? Turn to them again, then, and read more deeply. The Master put prayer into the Beatitudes in one of the greatest descriptions to be found in the Bible: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6). Prayer is hunger and thirst. Prayer is our demand on life, elevated, purified, and aware of a Divine Alliance.

SUGGESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION

What is the relation between prayer and a person’s dominant desires and purposes?
How far does prayer represent the real purpose and desire of the man?
When do the words spoken in prayer fail to represent the real prayers?
How far can a man’s character be measured by his prayers? What is the difference between outward petition and a dominant desire of a life?
What effect upon the answer to prayer has a person’s dominant desire?
Can prayer which does not represent dominant desire be answered? Why or why not?
What made the difference in the prayer for forgiveness of the servant who owed ten thousand talents and the one who owed one hundred shillings? When has a person a right to expect an answer to a prayer for forgiveness?
How far was the first missionary tour of Paul the result of prayer? What is the difference between offering a prayer for missions and offering ourselves?
When is a nation’s prayer for peace sincere? To what extent does prejudice against other classes and nations interfere with an effective prayer for peace?
When are we justified in praying for the poor? for our friends? for forgiveness? for world brotherhood? for missions?
Are all prayers representing dominant desire answered?
When is prayer sincere?
Why did the Master denounce the prayers of the Pharisees?
Why does lack of time for meditation make for insincerity in prayer?
When does a person really pray "Thy kingdom come"?
What is the relation of procrastination to the inefficacy of prayer?
What light do the Beatitudes throw upon the prerequisite of answered prayer?
What makes the difference between a petition addressed to God and a sincere prayer?
What makes for insincerity in prayer?
What is the relation of dominant desire to sincerity in prayer?
How can I make my prayers sincerely represent my dominant desires?