What is prayer?

This has been described as 'the intercourse of a dependent one with God.' It may take the form of communion in one brought nigh, or it may be the making requests for oneself or for others. There are twelve different words used for prayer in the O.T., and eight in the N.T., with various shades of meaning, as there are in English: 'asking, begging, beseeching,' etc. In the synoptic Gospels the word used in connection with Christ is that most commonly employed for "praying," but in John's gospel the word is that generally rendered, 'ask' or, 'demand.' The change is explained by the different aspect in which the Lord is presented in John.

First - Prayer is the language of request addressed to God. It is important to distinguish between prayer and worship, though they may both be found together in the same address to God. In worship, we give something to God - our thanksgiving, praise, or adoration. "Let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name" (Heb.13:15). Praise, then, is an offering, but prayer is a request. The common phrase 'offering a prayer' is therefore a mistake. We may offer worship, praise, adoration, thanksgiving. Prayer, however, is not an offering to God, but a request of something from Him.

It is communion with God. Brethren, prayer is not an apostrophe to woods and wilds and waters. It is not a moan let fly upon the viewless winds, nor a hopeless behest expended on a passing cloud. It is not a plaintive cry, directed to an empty echo, that can send back nothing but another cry. Prayer is a living heart that speaks in a living ear, — the ear of the living God.

We have now finally, in this part, the Spirit Himself entering into this groaning condition. The Spirit joins His help to our infirmity. In such a condition of trial and sorrow, our weakness is made fully evident, but that only opens to us more the heart of God and produces in us a healthful dependence upon Him every step of the way. Notice, therefore, that in connection with the Spirit helping our infirmities, prayer is that upon which the apostle dwells. Prayer is the expression of dependence. It is the expression of the creature-place which we have with God. It is the expression, also, if it be that which can rightly be called prayer, of our confidence in God. Prayer is thus, as one may say, a large part of the Christian life, or rather, it is that which links itself with every part of it. If the Lord, in the sermon on the mount, would give us a special example of righteousness Godward, He illustrates this by prayer; but the very prayer itself manifests our infirmity. We do not know even what to pray for as we ought. How blessed to know that here we have a divine Intercessor; as we have Christ before God for us, so we have the Spirit of God in us, and He makes intercession for us according to God. The prayer that He makes is, of course, absolutely according to God; yet as wrought in our hearts it may be on that very account simply a groaning which cannot be uttered intelligibly, — a wonderful thing to realize that these groanings which are the evidence of our own infirmity may, nevertheless, be the fruit of the Spirit within us; that in the ear of God they may speak intelligently, and in absolute accordance with His mind concerning us. We do not know what to pray for, and yet we pray; and God who searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, little as we may know it and blunder as we may. "He maketh intercession for the saints according to God." That does not mean simply that it is God's will that He should make the intercession, as our common version might lead some to suppose, but that the intercession itself, as being; His, is of necessity in complete accordance with His thought and character. We are not, however, to suppose by all this, that the Spirit's prayer is simply groaning. The groaning accompanies the prayer and is part of the prayer. "With groanings that cannot be uttered." Nevertheless, these groanings express, as it were, after all, that which is higher in character, it may be, than the very prayers themselves, however intelligent. Our intelligence fails to accompany them. They go beyond it. But if they go beyond it, all the more they express the power of the Spirit in them — of Him who has come to join His help to our infirmities, and to carry us along the lighted road which leads to God.

God has given us His truth that our thoughts may be fashioned like unto His own. This is to enjoy communion with Him. Our previous study, on standing and state, naturally prepares the way for the consideration of this blessed theme of realized fellowship with God, “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Timothy 1:9). He, who has thus so richly blessed us, desires to have us in living, happy communion with Himself, and this is the instinctive desire of every renewed soul. By nature and practice we are alienated and an enemy to God by wicked works, but when grace has wrought in the soul—when new birth has taken place—at once there springs up a yearning for fellowship with the blessed One whom now we address by the Spirit as “Abba Father” (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). Now this communion is not a human thing. Man in the flesh can have no fellowship with God. It is only known and enjoyed in the power of the Spirit. The direct means for its maintenance are the Word of God and prayer. In the Bible, God speaks to me. In prayer, I speak to Him. I use the word prayer here in its widest application; not merely as offering petitions, but as lifting up the heart to God in praise likewise.

Fellowship or communion (the two words are interchangeable) imply joy and peace in the presence of God. Prayer is a form of communion, or, to speak more correctly, it should be so. In prayer, we come into His presence to ask for grace to help in time of need, while in fellowship, there may be just delight in the Father and the Son, without bringing any petitions. The two may he distinguished, therefore.

It surely is enough to know that God would have us pray. Scores of scriptures might be cited to show that prayer is acceptable to God.

Nobody imagines that we pray in order to inform God of what He does not know. Nor do we pray in order to secure His interest or His love. The saint who prays intelligently realises that he is speaking to One who knows his every need far better than he does himself, whose interest in all that concerns His people is unbounded, and whose love could not possibly be greater than it is. The object of prayer is that dependence upon God might be expressed, and that our souls might be brought into touch with Him about what we pray for; that in waiting upon Him we might learn His mind; that utterance might be afforded for desires which the Holy Ghost has wrought within us, and that when the answer comes we might be conscious that it is indeed from God that it comes.

Christian prayer is the language of a heart already. brought nigh to God in Christ. We call upon the Father because we are already sons. Its natural tone is, therefore, one of holy confidence and trust. For it is by means of prayerful communion that the soul maintains itself in a conscious enjoyment of its standing in the grace of God. When we make known our requests to God in singleness of heart, we do not fail to have (while kept waiting still for special answers to our prayers), a fresh accession of His peace in our hearts (Phil. 4:6-7). If we sincerely trust His love, we can abide His pleasure. We know that we have the petitions which we ask of Him, when our hearts assure us in His presence (1 John 3:21-22). Prayer is essential to the well-being of the saint, for without it he could use with effect no other part of the whole armour of God. If faith speaks to God, it is in prayer, in confession, or in praise. And according to the frequency of this intercourse, is the believer strengthened to walk worthy of his calling. God's saints are left at much liberty as it respects this habit of prayer. We are counselled and directed, but constrained by no legal ordinance. For true prayer is something more than a tax for conscience to discharge. It implies a nearness of the heart to God. "When ye pray," said the Lord to his disciples, without prescribing times or seasons. Yet it is He who has set us the example in this exercise. For prayer is the language of a dependent soul; and Jesus, who came to glorify the Father in obedience, gave Himself continually to prayer. It was while He prayed that heaven opened, and the Holy Ghost descended to anoint Him as the Holy One of God. It was in answer, also, to His prayers, that He both glorified the Father's power by recalling Lazarus to life, and became transfigured, from His lowly fashion as a Servant, into the glorified Possessor of the kingdom of God. If we understand the manner of our calling as His disciples, we shall desire a large initiation into this secret of real blessing.

I do not think it altogether just, that "prayer is the soul's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed." I surely admit that there may be a sigh or a groan where the Holy Ghost's intercession is, and that the lifting up of the heart to God will never find repulse or coldness there. All that I admit; but there is an actual carrying a known want or trouble to God, the expression of the need we are in. The heart expresses itself in a distinct application. Thus it brings itself before God, and this is very important in our relationship with God. There is truth in the inward parts, and true confiding dependence. Up to this there was gnawing trouble, the working of the heart on the trouble, the soul refusing to be comforted. The will was at work, and could not get what it wanted. The soul thinks of God, but no comfort was there. There was but its own thoughts of Him; there was complaint, not prayer, and the spirit overwhelmed. So, when awake, he cannot be occupied naturally with ordinary matters, he is silent through trouble. It is a strong picture of a thoroughly distressed soul; only fully realised when a soul, through the chastening hand of God, has lost the sense of divine favour, or does not yet know peace, but which in a certain degree of not looking to Him may be the case with any one. But the soul turns to God. It has enjoyed mercy and songs in the night. Would the Lord cast off for ever? For the Christian this question has no place; but when the shield of faith is down, and the fiery darts of the wicked have reached the heart, a terrible and sore chastisement. The only thing like it is when a soul has lightly received the gospel in its mercy (without, however, being insincere), and the work of conscience goes on afterwards. When, instead of communing with self and reasoning with its own misery, it looks to God, the heart sees all this in itself, not in God. This is the turning-point.

Prayer is not a message to the moon. It is not a cry for help to the sun, or to the stars in their courses. It is a petition addressed to Him who made the sun and moon and stars. It is recourse to the ever-present and all-sufficient God. It is frailty fleeing to Omnipotence. It is misery at the door of mercy. It is "worm Jacob" at the ladder's foot, and that ladder's top in heaven. It is the dying thief beside a dying Saviour, and the same Paradise already open for them both. The mercy-seat is the ark of the covenant opened, and the legend over it, "Ask, and it shall be given thee." And prayer is just the exploring eye and the believing hand selecting from the "unsearchable riches of Christ" the sweetest mercies and the costliest gifts.