THE ESSENCE OF PRAYER

HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div

“There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.” Psalm 4:6

When the soul is in sore straits, there is no solace and no cure comparable to prayer. Let me take the wings of a dove, and fly away, and be at rest — not in neglect of my appointed tasks — but in communion with my all-sufficient Lord. “Up, my drowsing eyes! Up, my sinking heart! Up to Jesus Christ!”

Prayer recalls the great and precious promises, dwells on their wealth of meaning, and appropriates them as a personal possession.

Prayer deepens and intensifies the sense of dependence, so that, instead of planning and toiling and fighting for itself, the soul clings and trusts and cleaves to Him who is its Lover and its Beloved.

Prayer brings the remembrance that there is One — my King, my Father — who is wiser, mightier, immeasurably more prevailing, than all my adversaries.

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Prayer brings the strength of Heaven itself to my aid. There are a thousand valid reasons why I should pray and should not faint.

And the centuries behind me, since the old days when storm-driven psalmists sent their supplications up to their Lord — are filled with God’s answers to prayer. His seasonable mercies and deliverances sparkle bright through all these dim bygone years, like the stars which illumine the midnight sky. I am compassed about by a great cloud of witnesses, and they cry with one voice: “Ask, and You shall receive. Seek, and you shall find.”

So, in the windy storm, I will give myself to prayer.