Lesson 53: The Power of Persevering Prayer, part 3
Our great danger in this school of the answer delayed is the temptation to think that, after all, it may not be God’s will to give us what we ask. If our prayer is according to God’s word, and under the leading of the Spirit, let us not give way to these fears. Let us learn to give God time. God needs time with us. If we only give Him time, that is, time in the daily fellowship with Himself, for Him to exercise the full influence of His presence on us, and time, day by day, while our being kept waiting, for faith to prove its reality and to fill our whole being, He Himself will lead us from faith to vision. We shall see the glory of God. Let no delay shake our faith. Of faith it holds good: first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Each believing prayer brings a step nearer the final victory. Each believing prayer helps to ripen the fruit and bring us nearer to it. It fills up the measure of prayer and faith known to God alone; it conquers the hindrances in the unseen world; it hastens the end. Child of God! give the Father time. He is long-suffering over you. He wants the blessing to be rich, and full, and sure; give Him time, while you cry day and night. Only remember the word: “I say unto you, He will avenge them speedily.”
The blessing of such persevering prayer is unspeakable. There is nothing so heart-searching as the prayer of faith. It teaches you to discover and confess, and give up everything that hinders the coming of the blessing; everything that may be not in accordance with the Father’s will. It leads to closer fellowship with Him who alone can teach to pray, to a more entire surrender to draw nigh under no covering but that of the blood, and the Spirit. It calls to a closer and more simple abiding in Christ alone. Christian! give God time. He will perfect that which concerns you. “Long-suffering—speedily,” these are God’s watchwords as you enter the gates of prayer. Let them be yours too.
Let it be thus whether you pray for yourself, or for others. All labor, bodily or mental, needs time and effort; we must give up ourselves to it. Nature discovers her secrets and yields her treasures only to diligent and thoughtful labor. However, little we can understand it, in the spiritual husbandry it is the same: the seed we sow in the soil of heaven, the efforts we put forth, and the influence we seek to exert in the world above, need our whole being. We must give ourselves to prayer. But let us hold fast the great confidence that in due season we shall reap if we do not faint.
And let us specially learn the lesson as we pray for the Church of Christ. She is indeed as the poor widow, in the absence of her Lord, apparently at the mercy of her adversary, helpless to obtain redress. Let us, when we pray for His Church or any portion of it, under the power of the world, asking Him to visit her with the mighty workings of His Spirit and to prepare her for His coming, let us pray in the assured faith: prayer does help; praying always and not fainting will bring the answer. Only give God time. And then keep crying day and night. “Hear what the unrighteous judge saith. And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry to Him day and night, and He is long-suffering over them. I say unto you, He will avenge them speedily.”
Prayer: Blessed Master, You know how speedily we grow faint and weary. It is as if the Divine Majesty is so much beyond the need or the reach of continued supplication, that it does not become us to be too persistent. Oh Lord, teach me how real the labor of prayer is. Oh my blessed Teacher, Author and perfecter of faith, let my whole life be one of faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me—in whom my prayer gains acceptance, in whom I have the assurance of the answer, in whom the answer will be mine. Lord Jesus! in this faith I will pray always and not faint.