PRAYER
AND IMPORTUNITY
"How
glibly we talk of praying without ceasing! Yet we are quite
apt to quit, if our prayer remained unanswered but one week or
month! We assume that by a stroke of His arm or an action of
His will, God will give us what we ask. It never seems to dawn
on us, that He is the Master of nature, as of grace, and that,
sometimes He chooses one way, and sometimes another in which
to do His work. It takes years, sometimes, to answer a prayer
and when it is answered, and we look backward we can see that
it did. But God knows all the time, and it is His will that we
pray, and pray, and still pray, and so come to know, indeed
and of a truth, what it is to pray without ceasing." -- ANON.
OUR Lord Jesus
declared that "men ought always to pray and not to
faint," and the parable in which His words occur, was
taught with the intention of saving men from faint-heartedness
and weakness in prayer. Our Lord was seeking to teach that
laxity must be guarded against, and persistence fostered and
encouraged. There can be no two opinions regarding the
importance of the exercise of this indispensable quality in our
praying.
Importunate
prayer is a mighty movement of the soul toward God. It is a
stirring of the deepest forces of the soul, toward the throne of
heavenly grace. It is the ability to hold on, press on, and
wait. Restless desire, restful patience, and strength of grasp
are all embraced in it. It is not an incident, or a performance,
but a passion of soul. It is not a want, half-needed, but a
sheer necessity.
The wrestling
quality in importunate prayers does not spring from physical
vehemence or fleshly energy. It is not an impulse of energy, not
a mere earnestness of soul; it is an inwrought force, a faculty
implanted and aroused by the Holy Spirit. Virtually, it is the
intercession of the Spirit of God, in us; it is, moreover,
"the effectual, fervent prayer, which availeth much."
The Divine Spirit informing every element within us, with the
energy of His own striving, is the essence of the importunity
which urges our praying at the mercy-seat, to continue until the
fire falls and the blessing descends. This wrestling in prayer
may not be boisterous nor vehement, but quiet, tenacious and
urgent. Silent, it may be, when there are no visible outlets for
its mighty forces.
Nothing
distinguishes the children of God so clearly and strongly as
prayer. It is the one infallible mark and test of being a
Christian. Christian people are prayerful, the worldly-minded,
prayerless. Christians call on God; worldlings ignore God, and
call not on His Name. But even the Christian had need to
cultivate continual prayer. Prayer must be habitual, but much
more than a habit. It is duty, yet one which rises far above,
and goes beyond the ordinary implications of the term. It is the
expression of a relation to God, a yearning for Divine
communion. It is the outward and upward flow of the inward life
toward its original fountain. It is an assertion of the soul's
paternity, a claiming of the sonship, which links man to the
Eternal.
Prayer has
everything to do with moulding the soul into the image of God,
and has everything to do with enhancing and enlarging the
measure of Divine grace. It has everything to do with bringing
the soul into complete communion with God. It has everything to
do with enriching, broadening and maturing the soul's experience
of God. That man cannot possibly be called a Christian, who does
not pray. By no possible pretext can he claim any right to the
term, nor its implied significance. If he do not pray, he is a
sinner, pure and simple, for prayer is the only way in which the
soul of man can enter into fellowship and communion with the
Source of all Christlike spirit and energy. Hence, if he pray
not, he is not of the household of faith.
In this study
however, we turn our thought to one phase of prayer -- that of
importunity; the pressing of our desires upon God with urgency
and perseverance; the praying with that tenacity and tension
which neither relaxes nor ceases until its plea is heard, and
its cause is won.
He who has
clear views of God, and Scriptural conceptions of the Divine
character; who appreciates his privilege of approach unto God;
who understands his inward need of all that God has for him --
that man will be solicitous, outspoken and importunate. In Holy
Writ, the duty of prayer, itself, is advocated in terms which
are only barely stronger than those in which the necessity for
its importunity is set forth. The praying which influences God
is declared to be that of the fervent, effectual outpouring of a
righteous man. That is to say, it is prayer on fire, having no
feeble, flickering flame, no momentary flash, but shining with a
vigorous and steady glow.
The repeated
intercessions of Abraham for the salvation of Sodom and Gomorrah
present an early example of the necessity for, and benefit
deriving from importunate praying. Jacob, wrestling all night
with the angel, gives significant emphasis to the power of a
dogged perseverance in praying, and shows how, in things
spiritual, importunity succeeds, just as effectively as it does
in matters relating to time and sense.
As we have
noted, elsewhere, Moses prayed forty days and forty nights,
seeking to stay the wrath of God against Israel, and his example
and success are a stimulus to present-day faith in its darkest
hour. Elijah repeated and urged his prayer seven times ere the
raincloud appeared above the horizon, heralding the success of
his prayer and the victory of his faith. On one occasion Daniel
though faint and weak, pressed his case three weeks, ere the
answer and the blessing came.
Many
nights during His earthly life did the blessed Saviour spend in
prayer. In Gethsemane He presented the same petition, three
times, with unabated, urgent, yet submissive importunity, which
involved every element of His soul, and issued in tears and
bloody sweat. His life crises were distinctly marked, his life
victories all won, in hours of importunate prayer. And the
servant is not greater than his Lord.
The Parable of
the Importunate Widow is a classic of insistent prayer. We shall
do well to refresh our remembrance of it, at this point in our
study:
"And He
spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always
to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a
judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man; and there
was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying,
Avenge me of my adversary. And he would not for a while; but
afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God nor
regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge
her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord
said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God
avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though
He bear long with them? I tell you He will avenge them
speedily."
This parable
stresses the central truth of importunate prayer. The widow
presses her case till the unjust judge yields. If this parable
does not teach the necessity for importunity, it has neither
point nor instruction in it. Take this one thought away, and you
have nothing left worth recording. Beyond all cavil, Christ
intended it to stand as an evidence of the need that exists, for
insistent prayer.
We have the
same teaching emphasized in the incident of the Syrophenician
woman, who came to Jesus on behalf of her daughter. Here,
importunity is demonstrated, not as a stark impertinence, but as
with the persuasive habiliments of humility, sincerity, and
fervency. We are given a glimpse of a woman's clinging faith, a
woman's bitter grief, and a woman's spiritual insight. The
Master went over into that Sidonian country in order that this
truth might be mirrored for all time -- there is no plea so
efficacious as importunate prayer, and none to which God
surrenders Himself so fully and so freely.
The importunity
of this distressed mother, won her the victory, and materialized
her request. Yet instead of being an offence to the Saviour, it
drew from Him a word of wonder, and glad surprise. "O
woman, great is thy faith! Be it unto thee, even as thou
wilt."
He prays not at
all, who does not press his plea. Cold prayers have no claim on
heaven, and no hearing in the courts above. Fire is the life of
prayer, and heaven is reached by flaming importunity rising in
an ascending scale.
Reverting to
the case of the importunate widow, we see that her widowhood,
her friendlessness, and her weakness counted for nothing with
the unjust judge. Importunity was everything. "Because this
widow troubleth me," he said, "I will avenge
her speedily, lest she weary me." Solely because the widow
imposed upon the time and attention of the unjust judge, her
case was won.
God waits
patiently as, day and night, His elect cry unto Him. He is moved
by their requests a thousand times more than was this unjust
judge. A limit is set to His tarrying, by the importunate
praying of His people, and the answer richly given. God finds
faith in His praying child -- the faith which stays and cries --
and He honours it by permitting its further exercise, to the end
that it is strengthened and enriched. Then He rewards it by
granting the burden of its plea, in plenitude and finality.
The case of the
Syrophenician woman previously referred to is a notable instance
of successful importunity, one which is eminently encouraging to
all who would pray successfully. It was a remarkable instance of
insistence and perseverance to ultimate victory, in the face of
almost insuperable obstacles and hindrances. But the woman
surmounted them all by heroic faith and persistent spirit that
were as remarkable as they were successful. Jesus had gone over
into her country, "and would have no man know it." But
she breaks through His purpose, violates His privacy, attracts
His attention, and pours out to Him a poignant appeal of need
and faith. Her heart was in her prayer.
At first, Jesus
appears to pay no attention to her agony, and ignores her cry
for relief. He gives her neither eye, nor ear, nor word.
Silence, deep and chilling, greets her impassioned cry. But she
is not turned aside, nor disheartened. She holds on. The
disciples, offended at her unseemly clamour, intercede for her,
but are silenced by the Lord's declaring that the woman is
entirely outside the scope of His mission and His ministry.
But neither the
failure of the disciples to gain her a hearing nor the knowledge
-- despairing in its very nature -- that she is barred from the
benefits of His mission, daunt her, and serve only to lend
intensity and increased boldness to her approach to Christ. She
came closer, cutting her prayer in twain, and falling at His
feet, worshipping Him, and making her daughter's case her own
cries, with pointed brevity -- "Lord, help me!" This
last cry won her case; her daughter was healed in the self-same
hour. Hopeful, urgent, and unwearied, she stays near the Master,
insisting and praying until the answer is given. What a study in
importunity, in earnestness, in persistence, promoted and
propelled under conditions which would have disheartened any but
an heroic, a constant soul.
In these
parables of importunate praying, our Lord sets forth, for our
information and encouragement, the serious difficulties which
stand in the way of prayer. At the same time He teaches that
importunity conquers all untoward circumstances and gets to
itself a victory over a whole host of hindrances. He teaches,
moreover, that an answer to prayer is conditional upon the
amount of faith that goes to the petition. To test this, He
delays the answer. The superficial pray-er subsides into
silence, when the answer is delayed. But the man of prayer hangs
on, and on. The Lord recognizes and honours his faith, and gives
him a rich and abundant answer to his faith-evidencing,
importunate prayer.
