“How Vast the Resources of His Power …” No. 6

WHAT PRAYER SHOULD MEAN TO US

Those of us who have come to understand ourselves a little better appreciate the prayer of Agur in Proverbs 30. “Two things I ask of thee,” he says to God, “deny them not to me before I die.”

Remove far from me falsehood and lying;

Give me neither poverty nor riches;

Feed me with the food that is needful for me,

Lest I be full, and deny thee,

And say, “Who is the Lord?”

Or lest I be poor, and steal,

And profane the name of my God.

This prayer not only expresses wisdom, which gained a place for it in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament covenant, but it also goes far in serving as a model prayer for all people. Let us notice a few of the lessons it teaches about meaningful prayer.

1. Prayer should be related to the discipline of self-scrutiny.

We have to admire Agur for his self-integrity. He was acquainted with his weaknesses and he knew where he was vulnerable. Perhaps some men can get rich and keep their heads too, but Agur figured he could not. So he prayed that he not be given riches, lest he become self-sufficient and deny God. Neither did he figure he had the strength to endure poverty, and so he asked only for “the food that is needful for me.”

The old boy knew something about the psychology of man. He understood human nature. If he were to become rich, he could see himself saying, as he had heard other foolish men say who had become wealthy: “Who is the Lord?” If he were to be in poverty, he could see himself driven to thievery, as often happens when men are caught by the jaws of adverse circumstance.

Agur was not a determinist who believes that man is a slave to his environment, or that he is driven by the blind forces of circumstance. Man need not steal just because he is poor, and he need not forget God when he becomes rich. But Agur was a realist. He knew men and he knew himself. He knew life, and he learned it by living in our kind of a world-a world in which men are usually made worse by poverty, not better; and a world in which men are usually made worse by riches, not better.

Most of us will pay lip service to Agur’s wisdom, but nearly all of us believe that if we were rich, we would be just as faithful to God as before. Neither do most of us have the slightest notion that poverty would turn us into thieves. We are aware that the glitter of riches lure many away from spiritual concerns and that the blight of penury drives many to despair, but we suppose we would be exceptions. We might be reluctant to pray for riches, but we think we could manage the money without it ruining us, should the Lord choose to give it.

Few of us would be content with “the food that is needful for me.” We don’t have to cut it that close to be true to the Lord! Agur is overdoing it, we would say. But Agur really wanted what was best for his soul. Do we? It is at this point that meaningful prayer begins.

Agur no doubt knew the story of Israel, and how God had warned them: “Take heed lest when your silver and gold is multiplied, then your heart will be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God.” (Dt. 8:13-14) The Lord urged them to remember that it was He who gave them the power to get wealth, but they soon forgot and came to destruction.

Agur was honest with himself as well as with God. He knew something about what motivated him, and he could feel the strength of his drives and impulses. It was easy for him to be proud, and to love money and the power that it brings. He knew this. So he prayed for the simple life.

If in our prayers we could gain this kind of insight into ourselves, we too could pray more meaningfully. Job speaks of making a covenant with his eyes not to look upon a virgin. Is not this a strange kind of prayer? Cannot a man look at a virgin without sinning? Yes, but Job knew Job. A young woman might pray equally strangely when she says: “May that young man not ask me for another date, dear God.” Really, he’s a nice young man, cultured, rich, and educated; but she could tell by the first date that he would not be the kind of husband that would lead her life closer to God. Yet she was attracted to him. She might yield if he asked her out again, which might eventually lead to marriage. She knew herself, and she knew she could easily fall in love with him. So she asks God for help in stopping it before it gets started.

A woman left a widow asks God that she might not have to live with her children. Like Agur, she knows herself and her weaknesses-and she knows her children! Paul prayed that he might be delivered from unreasonable men, and he might have been thinking about how he might be tempted to behave in their company, as well as how they might behave toward him.

The basis of vital prayer is an impervious sense of need. Agur sought deliverance from that which would tend to make him independent of such a sense of need. He knew that riches not only encourage a false independence, but that they shackle a man to this earth. As William Barclay has put it: ‘The danger of riches is that they tend to make a man forget that he loses what he keeps, and he gains what he gives away.” It seems that Agur wants to avoid the luxurious life that makes it difficult for one to die. So he prayed that God might create that circumstance in his life that would bring out the best in him.

2. Prayer should be specific and direct.

Agur prayed right to the point, more like the crack of a rifle than of shotgun fire. “Two things I ask of thee,” he said as he began his prayer. He knew what he was going to say before he started. The great prayers of the Bible are specific in content. Hannah prayed for a baby. Paul prayed that his thorn in the flesh might be removed. Jesus prayed that the cup of suffering might pass from Him, and when He prayed for his disciples He must have mentioned them by name, one by one. If one would study the prayers of King David in the Psalms from the viewpoint of their content, he would be impressed with their specificity. For instance in Psa. 39:4 the poet prays: “Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days.” They are sometimes surprisingly specific: “Set a guard over my mouth, 0 Lord, keep watch over the door of my lips!” (Psa. 141:2)

There is the story of a servant girl who was kept too busy to do much for her congregation. But she explained to an inquirer that she could at least pray for people at night when she went to bed. “I take the newspaper to bed with me,” she explained, “and I read the birth notices, and I pray for the little babies who have just come into the world. I read the marriage notices, and I pray that God will give these people happiness. I read the death notices, and I pray that God will comfort those who are sad.”

Many of our prayers are dull and void of vitality because they are so general and indefinite. It may sometime be in order to say “Bless the people of our great nation,” but the appeal is more urgent and vital when we pray specifically for those who suffer because of delinquency and alcoholism, crime and injustice. To pray for the leaders of our country is always in order, but to do so by calling the President and one’s representatives in Washington by name is more forceful. It is more precious when a brother prays for missionaries that he knows of by name, making reference to some of their specific problems, than when he simply prays for “all our missionaries everywhere.”

Like Agur, it might be in order for us to keep a prayer list, whether mental or written. Agur may not have counted accurately, for he appears to have prayed for more than two things, but however many things he got right to the point when he addressed the Father. We too might pray: “Father, there are five people that I want to talk to you about this morning …” Or we might start by saying: “There are three things that are especially upon my heart tonight, 0 Lord …”

Perhaps the most meaningful prayers are not extemporaneous, meaning a prayer that is composed as one goes along, or on the spur of the moment. Especially would this be true of the regular seasons of prayer that we set for ourselves, such as morning and evening prayers. One disciplined in prayer might make a mental note (or a written one) during the day to pray about a particular matter during evening prayer. There is of course an important place for spontaneous prayers, which might emerge from our souls at any time of the day. These are usually the most direct and specific of all our praying: maybe for the stranger that we just met or for those in a plane crash that we just heard about, or about an evil thought that we just had. We like to wait to pray about some matters in an unhurried season of prayer, and these are often matters that we pray about again and again. At other times we wish to pray as if our petitions were breaths of air emerging from the depth of our soul, and which may sometimes be as constant as breathing itself. It may be here that our communion with the Holy Spirit is the closest, and it may be what Paul had in view when he wrote: “Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:18).

As exemplary as Agur’s prayer is it is still not the prayer of a Christian, and there are observations that we wish to make that are especially related to a Christian’s life of prayer.

1. The frequency of prayer

It is risky to try to prescribe for any saint a prayer timetable, or even to suggest the number of times he should pray each day. When I say each day, I am reminded of the statement in one of Alexander Campbell’s sermons on prayer: “I could as easily believe that a man could live seven years without breathing, as a Christian live seven days without praying.”

Paul would say: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). The primitive Christians probably continued their Jewish practice of “hours of prayer” three times a day (Acts 3:1), which goes back at least as far as Daniel, who got thrown in a den of lions because he continued such devotions in a pagan house of royalty, and David, who cried out: “Morning, noon, and evening do I cry unto thee.” But he also said: “Seven times a day I praise thee for thy righteous ordinances” (Psa. 119:164).

Such instructions as to “Pray always” and “Pray without ceasing” mean at least that the Christian lives a life of prayer. Like his Lord, he will be in constant communion with God, and will pray about every aspect of life. He will not simply pray for others and about events, but his prayers will also be filled with praise and thanksgiving. Aristotle and the psychologists who have succeeded him have taught us that man is a creature of habit, and that his education is largely a matter of building good habits into his life. So Christian education may be viewed in terms of cultivating certain habits.

It is this sense that we can speak of prayer as habitual, and thus it seems consistent for the Christian to have set times to pray. Every Christian should have a few minutes each day alone with God, for there are things he needs to talk about that he wants only God to hear. Family prayers should also be daily, and of course “the prayers of the saints” will frequently be enjoyed in the ecclesia.

It seems especially appropriate for the Christian to think of his “hour of prayer” as an appointment with God, an engagement far more important than any other business he has that day. William Barclay tells the story of Bertram Polluck, a Bishop of Norwich, who was as busy as a bishop can be (without really trying!), and yet he set three times a day for prayer, and let nothing interfere. Once when the bishop was about to have a moment alone with God, an important visitor came asking to see him. Gently he said to his servant: “Put him in an anteroom, and ask him if he will please wait. I have an appointment with God.”

2. The content of prayer

“Is it something that I can pray for or about?” provides an acid test for a lot of things in our lives. If parents cannot pray for their child as he goes to a movie or a dance, or out with a particular gang, then maybe he ought not to be going. If we cannot talk with God about the new home we hope to buy, or a new car or furniture, or the vacation we have planned, then maybe we need to ask ourselves some more questions.

So this question, “Can I pray for it?”, goes a long way toward determining the content of prayer. Certainly we should pray for our loved ones, calling them by name, and sharing with God the difficulties that we all have in living with each other in this complex world. We should pray for those who misunderstand us, or who question our motives, or reject us because we are different. We should pray for spiritual wisdom and understanding as Paul did (Col. 1:19), realizing that carnal wisdom actually cuts us off from God. Like St. Francis, we should pray for the wisdom to realize that it is more important that we love than that we be loved, and more important that we understand than that we be understood. We should pray for insight into other people’s feelings and as to why they behave the way they do. This helps us not to impugn motives.

It is good for us to examine the great prayers of the Bible and notice their content, but the point here is not that we are necessarily to pray for and about the things they did, but that their prayers were relevant to their lives, and ours should be also. We are to pray about those things in our own world. Our prayers should be twentieth-century prayers, however rooted they may be in Biblical times.

What is sweeter than a young person praying for his grandmother as she encounters the predicament of old age, or a man praying for his buddy who got hurt on the job. It is surely precious to God when a teacher breathes a prayer before she goes to her classroom, asking that she might be a blessing to her students, whether she is teaching clothing or math, and it is especially precious when her prayer is a personal thing between her and God. Too personal to mention to others!

3. The attitude of prayer

Another hazard in our prayer life is to overemphasize the mechanics that are necessarily involved, such as the posture, place, tonality, length. I recall from my days at Freed-Hardeman College that we had a boy there from Ft. Worth who “prayed with his eyes open.” Someone must have peeped in order to find out, but find out they did. I remember how the word got around, “Did you know that Steve prays with his eyes wide open?” From that time on I checked to make sure my eyes were closed tight when the prayers were intoned!

But who says you have to close your eyes or bow your head? If one lifts holy hands in prayer to God, it would be awkward for him at the same time to lower his head and close his eyes. David could pray as he watched the stars, and the prayer of our Lord in John 17 begins with: “He lifted up his eyes to heaven and said …”

While posture is by no means an irrelevant point to prayer, it would be amiss to insist on anyone position. Kneeling is so appropriate that Paul used it almost as a synonym for prayer: “I bow my knees before the Father” he says in Eph. 3:14. It is as natural to bow before God as it is to stand before man. It hardly seems appropriate for a saint to steal away to his secret chamber for prayer, and then sit down and pray. In our busy lives we should find ourselves breathing prayers throughout the day in all sorts of positions, whether driving, walking, or flying in airliner. It does, however, conform to Biblical examples that whenever we assume a position for the purpose of prayer, especially our regular seasons of prayer, that we kneel before God.

I personally respond negatively to any special tonality in prayer. It gives me the creeps when someone, usually a professional minister who has had a course in seminary on “How to Pray in Public,” shifts into a kind of Sabbatical tone when he begins his prayer. It sounds affected, and it tends to call attention to the mechanical. But perhaps he finds this meaningful to him, and I would not criticize him for it. But it isn’t for me, and I have a little trouble involving myself in that kind of prayer.

But I do like the honorific Elizabethan style of saying “Thou” and “Thee” and “hast” and “didst,” as awkward as these sometime seem. To me it is more reverent, and it constitutes terminology that we reserve only for God. It bothers me just a little to hear “Your will be done” instead of “Thy will be done.” “Thou art God” says more to me than “You are God.” But this is a matter of opinion and personal taste, and we must all leave each other free in such matters.

Prayer must not be viewed as some emergency measure. We should not think of it as a device to deliver us from some impending danger. It is rather a resource of power that gives us strength to meet the vicissitudes of life. It is a way of conquest rather than a path of escape. We have the wrong attitude about prayer if we think of it as the easy way out. For this reason it is better for us to pray that we might have the strength to bear a sorrow than to be delivered from it. Prayer is not some kind of magic. It does not do things for us as if it were a kind of divine Aladdin’s lamp. It rather enables us to do things for ourselves. We might think of it as a rule of prayer that God does nothing for us that we can do for ourselves. Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.

The most important thing you can do for someone is to pray for him, and the time spent in our own communion with God is the best investment of time we can make. And when we pray there is no petition more important than that one uttered by our Lord: “Thy will be done!” To pray that and to mean it will enable us to pray dangerously like Agur: “Feed me with the food that is needful for me.” —Editor

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This is sixth in a series of ten essays on Resources of Power. This volume of this journal will be issued in book form under that title early in 1967, attractively bound in hardback with dust jacket. It will be moderately priced. We will appreciate your reserving your copy now.