| The Golden Gate of Prayer |
Chapter 9 |
Page 6 |
Our prayer teaches us that the obedience of heaven is the divine ideal for the earthly doing of God’s will. Far above us seems this rule of life. We say we never can reach it. The song is too sweet for us ever to sing with our discordant voice. The life is too holy for us, with our sin-hurt nature, ever to live. Yet we should never think of it as a visionary or an impracticable rule of life. Some day we shall attain it, and we should never cease to strive toward it. God never would ask anything impossible or unreasonable of his children. He would not set for us a rule of life which we cannot follow. When he gives a duty he is ready also to give the grace needed for the doing of it. The Holy Spirit dwells in the heart of every believer, and he will help us to do the will of God.
“Thy will be done” is a prayer to our Father. To offer this petition continually without having made a surrender of our will is to pray insincerely. As fast as the divine will is revealed to us we should seek to obey it or submit to it. Then our prayer is that God, by his Spirit, would incline us to submission; would bring us more and more fully into accord with his way; would make us willing to be made willing; and would help us, whether is active obedience or in patient submission, to do our Father’s will on earth as it is done in heaven.
“Father, I do not ask
That thou wouldst choose some other task
And make it mine. I pray
But this: Let every day
Be moulded still
By thine own hand; my will
Be only thine, however deep
I have to bend thy hand to keep.
Let me not simple do, but be content,
Sure that the little crosses each are sent;
And no mistake can ever be
With thine own hand to choose for me.”
Page 6