| The Golden Gate of Prayer |
Chapter 2 |
Page 3 |
Some people begin their prayers by invoking God as the incomprehensible One, a God of majesty and holiness, the Lord of hosts. All these names of titles have their suggestions of attributes of qualities of the divine character and each has its own comfort. But none of them present to us thoughts of God which make approach to him easy. When we speak to God, however, as our father, the vision which arises before us assures us of welcome when we come to him.
In the midst of the splendors of royalty, when men of highest rank are admitted to the king’s presence only at the king’s pleasure, the children of the king’s household always have free access. No court rules shut them away or prescribe any ceremonious manner in which they must approach the throne. The king is their father. To be a child of God is to have assurance of access to him at all times. This golden gate of prayer, “Our Father,” opens into the innermost sanctuary, into the very secret place of the Most High: and it is shut neither day nor night to any child of God.
The first word in this form of prayer is important. It is not “My Father,” but “Our father.” This does not mean that we should never present our own particular needs in prayer. In a sense each one of us lives his life alone — apart from all others. We are to bring our own wants, our own yearnings, our own infirmities and dangers, our own sorrows and trials; but in doing so, even when most engrossed with our own affairs, we may not fail to include others and to think of them. “When thou prayest alone, shut thy door… shut out as much as thou canst the sight and notice of others, but shut not out the interest and the good of other.” We should never forget, even in the time when the stress of our own need is greatest, that there are other children of our Father who likewise have their needs, and that these should be remembered by us while we prayed for ourself. To live truly is to love. If we love God we will love our brother too. Love puts others alongside ourself, and we must think of them while we tell God of our own wants of troubles.
The word “our” takes in the whole family. None should be left out. It is not easy to use the word, our heart meaning all that is included in it. It is like the word “neighbor,” which the Scriptures wrote in the commandment of love, — “thy neighbor as thyself.” The Jews had an easy way of defining this word. To begin with, they drew a circle which shut out all the world but their own nation. Then among their own people they regarded as neighbors only those of the sect or the set to which they themselves belonged. But when Jesus came, with his larger definitions of the commandment, all these and other narrowing lines were swept away and “neighbor” appeared as including all the world.
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