Oswald ChambersPrayer alters CIRCUMSTANCES through meIt is only when a man flounders beyond any grip of himself and cannot understand things that he really prays. It is not part of the natural life of a man to pray. By “natural” I mean the ordinary, sensible, healthy, worldly-minded life. We hear it said that a man will suffer in his life if he does not pray; I question it. Prayer is an interruption to personal ambition, and no man who is busy has time to pray. What will suffer is the life of God in him, which is nourished not by food but by prayer. If we look on prayer as a means of developing ourselves, there is nothing in it at all, nor do we find that idea of prayer in the Bible. Prayer is other than meditation; it is that which develops the life of God in us. When a man is born from above (rv mg), the life of the Son of God begins in him, and he can either starve that life or nourish it. Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished. Our Lord nourished the life of God in Him by prayer; He was continually in contact with His Father. We generally look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves, whereas the Bible idea of prayer is that God’s holiness and God’s purpose and God’s wise order may be brought about, irrespective of who comes or who goes. Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament.When a man is in real distress he prays without reasoning; he does not think things out, he simply spurts it out—“Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses.” When we get into a tight place our logic goes to the winds, and we work from the implicit part of ourselves.“Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.” Then why ask? Very evidently our ideas about prayer and Jesus Christ’s are not the same. Prayer to Him is not a means of getting things from God, but in order that we may get to know God. Prayer, that is, is not to be used as the petted privilege of a spoiled child seeking for ideal conditions in which to indulge his spiritual propensities ad lib.; the purpose of prayer is to reveal the Presence of God, equally present at all times and in every condition.A man may say, “Well, if the Almighty has decreed things, why need I pray? If He has made up His mind, what is the use of me thinking I can alter His mind by prayer?” We must remember that there is a difference between God’s order and God’s permissive will. God’s order reveals His character; His permissive will applies to what He permits. For instance, it is God’s order that there should be no sin, no suffering, no sickness, no limitation and no death; His permissive will is all these things. God has so arranged matters that we are born into His permissive will, and we have to get at His order by an effort of our own, viz., by prayer. To be children of God, according to the New Testament, does not mean that we are creatures of God only, but that we grow into a likeness to God by our own moral character.I question whether the people who continually ask for prayer meetings know the first element of prayer. It is often an abortion of religious hysterics, a disease of the nerves taking a spiritual twist. Jesus says we are to pray in His name, i.e., in His nature, and His nature is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost when we are born from above (rv mg; see Luke 11:13; Romans 5:5). Again, Jesus did not promise to be at every prayer meeting, but only at those “where two or three are gathered together in My name,” i.e., in His nature (Matthew 18:20). Jesus Christ does not pay any attention to the gift of “religious gab,” and His words—“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking,” refer not to the mere repetition and form of words, but to the fact that it is never our earnestness that brings us into touch with God, but our Lord Jesus Christ’s vitalising death. (See Hebrews 10:19)Our Lord in His teaching regarding prayer never once referred to unanswered prayer; He said God always answers prayer. If our prayers are in the name of Jesus, i.e., in accordance with His nature, the answers will not be in accordance with our nature, but with His. We are apt to forget this, and to say without thinking that God does not always answer prayer. He does every time, and when we are in close communion with Him, we realise that we have not been misled.“Ask, and it shall be given you.” We grouse before God, and are apologetic or apathetic, but we ask very few things; yet what a splendid audacity a child-like child has! and our Lord says, “Except ye . . . become as little children. . . .” Jesus says, “Ask, and God will do.” Give Jesus Christ a chance, give Him elbow-room, and no man ever does it until he is at his wits’ end. During the war* many a man prayed for the first time in his life. When a man is at his wits’ end, it is not a cowardly thing to pray, it is the only way to get in touch with Reality. As long as we are self-sufficient and complacent, we don’t need to ask God for anything, we don’t want Him; it is only when we know we are powerless that we are prepared to listen to Jesus Christ and to do what He says.Cont...
