“If two of you…shall agree…”
I feel even when praying alone that there are two concerned in prayer,
God and myself…I do not think that a petition which misses the mind of God will
ever be answered (I John 5:14). Personally I feel the need of leading me in
prayer as well as in other matters.”
He found it helpful to start in prayer, not only in
meditation, but with a definite request that God direct him in the channels of
prayer the Holy Spirit was beckoning him into.
He also found it helpful to make a short list, “like notes
prepared for a sermon”, before every time of prayer. “The mind needs to be guided as well as the
spirit attuned. I can thus get my thoughts
in order, and having prepared my prayer put the notes on the table or chair
before me, kneel down and get to business.”…
“Overstrained faith is not pure faith, there is a mixture of
the carnal element in it. There is no
strain in the ‘rest of faith’. It asks
for definite blessing as God may lead; it does not hold back through carnal
timidity, nor press ahead too far through carnal eagerness…”
“I read a testimony… not long ago in which he said that one
of the greatest blessings of his life had been his unanswered prayers. And I can say the same…unanswered prayers
have taught me to seek the Lord’s will instead of my own. I suppose we have most of us had such
experiences. We have prayed and prayed
and prayed, and no answer has come. The heavens
above us have been as brass. Yea,
blessed brass, if it has taught us to sink a little more of this ever-present
self of ours to the cross of Christ.
Sometimes our petition has been such a good one, to all
appearances, but that does not ensure it is of God. Many good desires proceed from our
uncrucified selves…
--More from James O Fraser, in Mountain Rain
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