God's help is always sure, His methods seldom guessed; Delay will make our pleasure pure, Surprise will give it zest.
His wisdom is sublime, His heart profoundly kind; God never is before His time, And never is behind.
VII. What, then, is the character of the prayer which avails? That some prayers are "hindered"--so hindered as to be unsuccessful--we know full well. This may be accounted for partly by mistaken notions about the Scripture theory of prayer. For example, Jesus says, "What things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." The teaching of these words is that the inspiration to true prayer is God's pledge of the blessings sought, and that we must be prepared to take it as such. The prayer of a man who has not full faith in prayer falls short of its mark. Hindrance may also arise from mistaken notions as to the primary use of prayer. Prayer is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is true that the holier we become the more shall we find ourselves accustomed to an atmosphere of prayerfulness as the normal condition of the soul. But we shall not pray aright, if we pray under the impression that we are holy because we pray. We must rather pray in order to be holy. The hindrance may also arise from the absence of a supreme anxiety and of a constant effort to honour God in all our relations. Peter speaks of obedience to the duties which spring from the conjugal relation as being necessary to prevent the "hindrance"--the ineffectualness--of family prayer. This is but a special application of a great general principle--namely, the connection between holy conduct in society and the efficiency of our social devotional exercises. These two act and re-act upon each other. To secure the true, full benefit of prayer, we must strive to live holily in all the society with which we mingle. This point touches upon the value of intercessory prayer. Suppose that there is a want of correspondence between the interest in the welfare of those around us which we express in our prayers on their behalf, and that which we show in our intercourse with them; can we rightly expect such prayers to prevail? The deficiency is too frequently manifest in our relations both to the Church and the world. How often is Church brotherhood nominal rather than real! How many pray for the salvation of souls, without caring to do anything else! There is one thing which will always, in so far as it exists, be a barrier to the acceptableness of prayer, and that is the wilful and persistent violation of any of the Divine commands--the refusal to perform Christian duties incumbent upon us, or the cherishing of some habit or propensity known to be wrong. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." The success of our prayers does not depend upon our learning, or upon the skill with which we can express our petitions, or with which we can string them together. It depends rather upon the state of our hearts--the vivid consciousness of need, the deep feeling of dependence on God, the supreme desire of the heart to be right with Him, faith in His promises, trust in His power and His love, gratitude for His goodness, an unfainting perseverance in appealing to His throne, and a willingness to wait His time for the blessings thus humbly, trustfully, and earnestly sought. These are the elements of the true spirit of prayer. "Ask" thus "and it shall be given you;" "seek" thus, "and ye shall find;" "knock" thus, "and it shall be opened unto you."