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THE
NEW LIFE by
John Marshall
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Chapter
13 • THE
WAY OF PRAYER
Praise
and Thanksgiving
Whilst our prayers should begin with an expression of our
worship and adoration of the Father, we should neither forget
nor omit from them our praise and thanksgiving. Through His
Word and the life and teaching of His Son He has entered our
poor hearts and touched us with His love. And who can say
that we deserve any of this?
We are prone, indeed we are quick to take our troubles to
the Father; but we are slow to count our blessings and to
thank Him for the bright vision of eternity which He has given
to sustain us in the misfortunes which shape our characters.
The spirit of praise runs through the lives of all the faithful
of old:
"I
will bless the Lord at all times:
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make her boast in the Lord:
The humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
O magnify the Lord with me,
And let us exalt his name together."
Jesus
made quite clear that prayer is a turning to God to glorify
Him, and if this manifestly becomes our habitual thought in
prayer it is surprising what strength can result from this
forgetfulness of serf and absorption of the Father. But the
very spirit of this approach arouses the consciousness of
one's own unworthiness set against His majesty. Isaiah felt
this very strongly and his words are a salutary reminder of
our frailty. How unclean must we sometimes appear to the Father!
Others have felt this too, particularly after a grievous fault:
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References
Psa 34v1-3, Isa 6v1-7
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Chapter
13• THE WAY OF PRAYER
"Have
mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving
kindness . . .
Wash me throughly from mine iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin ...
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a right spirit within me ...
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation,
And uphold me with thy free spirit."
These
then, are the bases of true prayer: humility, worship, praise, thanksgiving,
penitence; and throughout the Scriptures there are noble words and
phrases that help us in our faltering search for the thoughts to
express our emotions in these ways.
If
our minds become conditioned to the sense of holiness that prayer
in these ways engenders, we shall see our personal problems and
anxieties in a better spiritual perspective. We shall neither over-emphasize
nor underestimate our difficulties and shall pray for what we need,
not for what we want. Above all we shall pray, as far as possible,
with the Father's will-His desires-in mind, rather than our own
selfish wishes. This is the thought behind the prayers of Jesus,
the thought behind: "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in
prayer, believing, ye shall receive." That this privilege was
not to be an unlimited one James makes clear when he chided those
who evidently lacked comprehension of the spirit of prayer: "Ye
ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it
in your pleasures." Thus we must think carefully about our
motives before we present our petitions to the Father.
When with a reverent sobriety we enter the holiest in prayer we
do so in the knowledge that we are allowed "free speech"
with Him. We are allowed to talk with Him and to tell Him of our
joys and anxieties, of our sorrows and our cares.
No one need worry about the words to be used because He is accustomed
to hearing prayers in a multitude of languages and from children
of the Covenant who may be illiterate or highly educated.
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References
Psa 51v1,2,10,12, Matt 21v22, James 4v3 RV
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