Signs of the Times

Rev. George S. Reamey in The Virginia Methodist Advocate Richmond, Virginia

Prayer helps us discover the will of God for our lives. There is a vast difference between the prayer that asks God to do for us what we want done, on the one hand, and the prayer that tries to find out what God wants us to be and to do!

"Nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt," is ever the ideal way to pray. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane just before the crucifixion had just asked God that "the cup" (the cross) might be taken from Him. But then He added that marvelous petition just quoted. He wanted above all to do the will of God!

When you and I really want to know God's will concerning our lives, He has a way of revealing to us just what that will is.

Prayer gives direction to life. Wherever one looks, he finds that multitudes of people have lost their way in life. ... Among the lost. or partially lost, must be included that vast army of people whose sins are not just of the body but of the spirit. he vain, the selfish, the proud, the self-seeking, the envious, the unlovely. In a word, those who have ceased to grow spiritually!

So many persons seem to press onward and upward toward God for a few years, perhaps in childhood, and then strike a plateau above which the do not rise. Love of ease takes possession of them; too much concern about self; sheer indifference to spiritual values. Prayer offers guidance to such persons as these! Sometimes the are not sufficiently concerned to pray, but there does await them this avenue to a more meaningful life if they will but make use of it.

Prayer offers direction also to those who are seriously trying to follow Christ. liven as Jesus Himself found it necessary frequently to get away from people and talk with the Heavenly Father, so do we need to take time to talk with Him and listen as He speaks. If this business of Christian living is mainly a matter of letting the purposes of God find expression in these lives of ours, then surely we can the better discover those purposes the closer we live to Him! ...

Prayer not only gives direction to life but it offers the strength required to proceed in the directions indicated. Whether the responsibility at the moment is to overcome some temptation that confronts us, or to bear up under some overwhelming sorrow, or to stand the temporary separation from loved ones, or to discharge the daily duties that sometimes all but crush us, we need more than human power!

The Scriptures are filled with instances of persons who in their weakness found needed strength through faith in God. The Psalmist cried out, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer (permit) tin foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. ... the Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore" (Ps. 121 ).

St. Paul, in writing to the Christians at Thessalonica, told them that the should "pray without ceasing" (I Thessalonians 5:17 ). ... So there is no time in the twentv-four hours when it is not appropriate to pray....

When a man forms the habit, in the early morning, of pausing for a few minutes to talk with God in quiet prayer, there comes a strength, a power, a sense of God's presence, which go with him through the day....

If we have difficulty finding time for ... undisturbed meditation and communion with God, we may need to plan ahead. ... There are few lives so busy that some time cannot be found if proper effort is made. If not, then something else should be left out of the daily schedule in order to find this time for God....

Much of our prayer time is taken amid the busy duties of the day when we pray a sentence or two while walking along, or eating our meals, or in conversation with friends or loved ones.

Dr. J. H. Hunter in a column of The Evangelical Christian Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Serving or giving always follows love jut as surely as the flower reaches for the sun. ... Anyone who says he loves God's kingdom and His cause, and yet feels no desire to propagate them by giving of ... his substance or his time is surely deceiving himself. If we love God we will want to keep His commandments, do His work and obey His will. There is nothing abstruse about that. It is an elementary principle of the Christian life. "This commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."

Love and service go hand in hand. They were born twins. It has been said that the loveliest two lines that Tennyson ever wrote were these from "Locksley Hall":