William Boyd Carpenter

“ I have known men of a naturally timid and sensitive disposition who have grown at moments lion-like in courage, and they would tell you that courage came to them in prayer. [13] I have known one man, who found himself face to face with a duty which was unexpected and from which he shrank with all his soul. I have known that such a one has prayed that the duty might not be pressed upon him, and yet that, if it were, he might be given strength to fulfil it. ”

“ We pray that the divine love would spare them dark days; and yet, are the prayers well prayed? Does God not lead souls through darkness into light? Is not the Valley of the Shadow the precursor of the table of love which God spreads? ”

“ He threatened to take away his life. But in his despair he still clung to his God; and at last, as in this desperate, and yet not altogether hopeless or prayerless mood, he read a sermon on "Elijah as a brave prophet tired of life;" hope was reborn and joy restored, and as Bunyan's pilgrim lost his burden at the cross, so this Elijah escaped from his tormentors, and came forth and dwelt in the light of God's countenance. It was the prayer of a weak and struggling faith; but God did not turn it away, nor reject the voice of his supplication. ”

“ Abraham Lincoln once said: "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go; my own wisdom and that of all around me seemed insufficient for the day."
But what is prayer? Has every prayer power with God? Let us endeavour to get some clear ideas on that point. Some people seem to regard prayer as the rehearsal of a set form of solemn words, learned largely from the Bible or a liturgy; and when uttered they are only from the throat outward. Genuine prayer is a believing soul's direct converse with God. ”

“ To a business man, it was a call to surrender what you would call business tact. I had to rise up there and then, and proclaim in the midst of the commercial city of Glasgow, that from that moment I was to live by faith, and depend on God for money, wisdom and strength. From that time forward I would ask no man for money, but trust God for everything. That £2000 was the first direct answer to prayer for money. He gave me the utmost of my asking, and I felt that I would need to give Him the utmost of the power I pledged. ”

“ But there are some whose eyes are not yet open to these invisible things of the Spirit, which are indeed the real things. The measure of faith is not yet given them, and they do not recognise that web,—the only web which will last when the loom of the world is broken,—the web of which the warp is the will of God, and the woof the prayers of men. For these, to speak of the whole as answered prayer is as good as to say that no prayer is answered at all. ”

“ We form our expectations: they take shape from our poor little limited surroundings; but the prayer in its spirit may be wider than we imagine. To answer it according to our expectations might be not to answer it truly. To answer it according to our real meaning—i.e., according to our spiritual desire—must be the true answer to prayer.
One illustration will suffice. A man, pressed by difficulty and straitness, may pray that he may be moved to some place of greater freedom and ease. He thinks that he ought to move elsewhere. He prays for guidance and the openings of God's providence. ”

“ Leave alone those futile and often misguided petitions for temporal blessings, or even for success in their work, and plead with your God in the terms of that prayer with which Saint Paul bowed his knees for the Ephesians. Ask that this person, or these persons, known to you, may have the enlightenment and expansion of the Spirit, the quickened love and zeal, the vision of God, the profound sympathy with Christ, which form the true Christian life. Pray and watch, and as you watch, still pray. ”

“ Prayer was not a task for specific occasions; it was the breath of her life. It was not a wrestle or a struggle; it was an uplifting of her being into a fellowship with God. It did not shrivel into a litany of petitions; it was sustained aspiration; and aspiration is a large part of achievement; it was deepest satisfaction with God, and His will and His work: and such satisfaction is itself a source of patient strength and a preparation for victory. ”

“ For our prayers for the kingdom are not uttered on the housetops; and the kingdom itself cometh not with observation.
But if it were not too delicate a subject I could recite instances, to me the most remarkable answers to prayer in my experience, of changed character and enlarged Christian life, resulting from definite intercession. It is an experiment which any loving and humble soul can easily make. Take your friends, or better still the members of the church to which you belong, and set yourself systematically to pray for them. ”

“ I confess I am unsatisfied with answers to prayer when the prayer is only for these carnal and visible things, which are often, in boundless love and pity, withheld. The constant and proper things to pray for are precisely those the advent of which cannot be observed or tabulated; that the kingdom may come, that they who have sinned, not unto death, may be forgiven, that the eyes of Christian men may be enlightened, and their hearts expanded to the measure of the love of Christ. ”

“ PRAYER is a comprehensive word and includes, in fact, all communion between the soul and God. It is, however, commonly used to mean the asking for benefits from God. Christians believe that prayer is a power, that it does act in the fulfilment of God's purposes, and that the results of prayer are real results, not only in the spiritual, but also in the physical world. This is no mere matter of opinion, it is part of the Christian faith. For better, for worse, however difficult the doctrine may appear, [40] the Church is committed to it. ”

“ Looking back on the way by which we have come, it seems to me now that faith and work necessarily go together. Earnest believing prayer is not less earnest and believing because you use the means God has put within your reach. Your dependence upon God is just the same. You send out an appeal, but it is God who disposes the hearts of the people to subscribe. ”

“ There is, further, a paradox of Christian experience which may be noted. The soul which waits upon God finds out sooner or later that the prayers which seem to be unanswered are those which may be most truly answered. For what is the answer to prayer which the praying heart looks for? There [14] is no true prayer without the proviso—Nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt. In other words, there is no true prayer without reliance upon the greater wisdom and greater love of Him to whom we pray. ”

“ With reference to money for Christian work, I have laboured to induce my own church to adopt the simple view that we should ask not men, but in the first instance God, the owner of it all, for what we want. I am thankful to say that some of them now believe this, and bring our needs to Him very simply and trustfully. I could name many instances of the following kind: there is a threatened deficit in the funds of the mission, or an extension is needed and we have not the money. The sound of misgiving is heard; we have not the givers; the givers have given all they can. "Why not trust God?" ”

“ Is it not the case that one of a delicate soul will detect [37] secret trouble in the failure of a smile, in a sub-tone of voice, in a fleeting shadow on the face? "How did he know?" we duller people say. "By his fellowship with Christ" is the only answer. "Why did we not know?" On account of our hardness and selfishness. If one live self-centred—ever concerned about his own affairs, there is no callousness to which he may not yet descend; if one live the selfless life, there is no mysterious secret of sympathy which may not be his. ”

“ When I hear requests for prayer for the conversion of a son or daughter, I say to myself, How much is that parent doing to win that child for Christ? The godly wife who makes her daily life attractive to her husband has a right to ask God for the conversion of that husband; she is co-operating with the Holy Spirit, and prepaying her heart's request. God never defaults; but He requires that we prove our faith by our works, and that we [25] never ask for a blessing that we are not ready to labour for, and to make any sacrifice to secure the blessing which our souls desire. ”

“ There is a reticence which is of faith, just as there may be a reticence which is of cowardice or unfaith. But like the little home treasures, which we only open to look upon when we are alone, so are some of the secret treasures of inward experiences. Nevertheless, none of us can have lived and thought without meeting with a sort of general confirmation or otherwise of the efficacy of prayer ”

“ The indispensable quality of all right asking is a right spirit toward our heavenly Father. When a soul feels such an entire submissiveness towards God that it delights in seeing Him reign, and His glory advanced, it may fearlessly pour out its desires; for then the desires of God and the desires of that sincere submissive soul will agree. God loves to give to them who love to let Him have His way; they find their happiness in the chime of their own desires with the will of God. ”

“ When a certain venerable minister was called on to pray in a missionary convention he first fumbled in his pocket, and when he had tossed the coin into the plate he said, "I cannot pray until I have given something." He prepaid his prayer. For the Churches in these days to pray, "Thy kingdom come," and then spend more money on jewellery and cigars than in the enterprise of Foreign Missions, looks almost like a solemn farce. God has no blessings for stingy pockets. ”

“ I took it up, opened it, and discovered that it contained a cheque for ten pounds for the West London Mission, bringing up the amount needed for that day to the exact sum which we had named in our midnight prayer-meeting. Of course this also may be described as a mere coincidence, but all we want is coincidences of this sort. The name is nothing, the fact is everything, and there have been many such facts.
Let me give one other in reference to money, as this kind of illustration will perhaps, more than any other, impress those who are disposed to be cynical and to scoff. ”

“ Thus, indeed, we can enter into the spirit of familiar words and acknowledge concerning each prayer that it is
"Goodness still,
Which grants it or denies."
And so it may come to pass in later life that our specific petitions for this or that thing may grow fewer. We may realise more and more our own ignorance in asking. We may rely more and more on the divine wisdom in giving. Even in the case of others we may recognise the unwisdom of asking many things on their behalf. Our love would tenderly shield them from rough winds and [17] bitter hours. ”

“ Some years ago I was at work one forenoon in my study, and very busy, when my mind became distracted and I could not think out my sermon. It was as if a side stream had rushed into a river, confusing and discolouring the water; and at last, when the confusion was over and the water was clear, I was conscious of a new subject. Some short time before, a brother minister, whom I knew well and greatly respected, had suffered from dissension in his congregation and had received our sincere sympathy. ”

“ One of Huxley's maxims was "The man of science has learnt to believe in justification by verification." Certainly! and why not? The Christian is bidden by the teacher who ranks next to Jesus Christ, our one and only Master, to "prove all things, and hold fast that which is good." Human experience is always verifying truth and exposing falsehood. New forces are set to work in the lives of men, and offer us their effects for examination. New acts repeated lead to new habits, and new habits make a new character. ”

“ Another essential of the prayer that has power with God is that it be the prayer of faith, and be offered in the name of Jesus Christ. "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." The chief "wrestling" that we are to do is not with any reluctance on God's part; it is with the obstacles which sin and unbelief put in our pathway. What God orders we must submit to uncomplainingly; but we must never submit to what God can better. ”

“ It is he who thinks the most sanely and dwells nearest the central truths of life and being. It is he who becomes serenely acquiescent in the agnosticism of the Bible, and realises that revelation must contain many things past finding out, whilst the Spirit, who is the revealer, gives us the best assurances of the certitude and clearness of what it is most important for us to know. ”