Lesson 58: Prayer in Harmony with the Destiny of Man, part 2
With sin, all destinies underwent a terrible change—man’s fall brought all creation under the curse. With redemption, the beginning was seen of a glorious restoration. No sooner had God begun in Abraham to form for Himself a people from whom kings, yes, the Great King, should come forth, than we see what power the prayer of God’s faithful servant has to decide the destinies of those who come into contact with him. In Abraham, we see how prayer is not only, or even chiefly, the means of obtaining blessing for ourselves, but is the exercise of his royal prerogative to influence the destinies of men, and the will of God which rules them. We do not once find Abraham praying for himself. His prayer for Sodom and Lot, for Abimelech, and for Ishmael, prove what power a man, who is God’s friend, has to make the history of those around him.
This had been man’s destiny from the first. Scripture not only tells us this, but also teaches us how it was that God could entrust man with such a high calling. It was because He had created him in His own image and likeness. The external rule was not committed to him without the inner fitness: the bearing of God’s image in having dominion, in being lord of all, had its root in the inner likeness, in his nature. There was an inner agreement and harmony between God and man, and incipient Godlikeness, which gave man a real fitness for being the mediator between God and His world, for he was to be prophet, priest, and king, to interpret God’s will, to represent nature’s needs, to receive and dispense God’s bounty. It was in bearing God’s image that he could bear God’s rule; he was indeed so like God, so capable of entering into God’s purposes, and carrying out His plans, that God could trust him with the wonderful privilege of asking and obtaining what the world might need. Although sin has for a time frustrated God’s plans, prayer remains what it would have been if man had never fallen: the proof of man’s Godlikeness, the vehicle of his intercourse with the Infinite Unseen One, the power that is allowed to hold the hand that holds the destinies of the universe. Prayer is not merely the cry of the suppliant for mercy; it is the highest forth-putting of his will by man, knowing himself to be of Divine origin, created for and capable of being, in king-like liberty, the executor of the counsels of the Eternal.
Prayer: Lord God, how low has sin made man to sink. And how terribly has it darkened his mind, that he does not even know his Divine destiny, to be Your servant and representative. Alas, that even Your people, when their eyes are opened, are so little ready to accept their calling and to seek to have power with God, that they may have power with men too to bless them.