The Prayer for Prayer
W.F. Adeney Job 37:19 Teach us what we shall say to him; for we cannot order our speech by reason of darkness. Seeing Jesus in prayer, and noticing how different his prayer was from theirs, the disciples besought him to reach them to pray (Luke 11:1). Their request implied a high estimation of true prayer, and at the same time a deep sense of their own inability to pray aright. The same feelings are expressed to us by Elihu. I. WHAT IS REQUIRED IN TRUE PRAYER. The greatness of God suggests to Elihu the importance of speaking to God in the right way. The vastness and splendour o{ the heavens, as well as the majesty of the thunder and the government of the cloud, impress us with the majesty of God; and yet his greatest glory is not seen in these phenomena, but it is revealed in his moral rule and his fatherly goodness. It would be a foolish thing for us to shrink from approaching God on account of his majesty in the physical universe. He is not like a stately monarch who surrounds himself with the ceremony of a court. Formal manners are an abomination in prayer. God does not look for the courtier's obsequiousness; he seeks the child's confidence. At the same time, his kingly state is crowned by holiness. We have to approach him in awe of his purity. He dwells in light eternal. This fact, much more than his power and wide sway over the physical universe, calls for a deeply reverent spirit in prayer. Then the spiritual nature of God requires spiritual worship, and we must be true in heart if we would pray acceptably. II. THE DIFFICULTY OF ATTAINING TO TRUE PRAYER. Elihu and the disciples of Christ both felt this difficulty. Job's friend gives the cause of it - "for we cannot order our speech by reason of darkness." 1. Ignorance. We do not know what God wills; nor do we know our own hearts. Not only is the spiritual realm strange to us; we even need to know what are our needs. 2. Sin. This is the darkness that really hinders and ruins prayer. The father is not vexed at his child's helpless prattle when the child is loving and obedient. He does not look for pompous phrases; he prefers the natural, simple outpouring of the child's heart. But he is grieved at duplicity, insincerity, unreality. When our hearts are far from God we cannot pray acceptably to him. The great difficulty is want of sympathy with God; want of sympathy is the one hindrance to all human intercourse, and it is the one thing that prevents us from praying acceptably. III. THE WAY TO REACH TRUE PRAYER. This is by prayer. We must pray to be taught to pray. The confession of our inability to pray is the first step towards doing so acceptably. Pride and self-sufficiency keep us back from the right spirit of prayer. We have to learn to bow our wills as well as to bend our knees. But the prayer to be taught this lesson may be answered in unexpected ways. We may learn what we should say to God in a school of adversity. Humbled and subdued by sorrow, we may be brought down to the right spirit of prayer in the experience from which we shrink with dismay. Or perhaps the lesson may come through more directly spiritual influences. We need to contemplate the character of God in order to pray to him aright. The revelation of God in Christ shows us how we should approach God. When we see Jesus we learn how to pray. - W.F.A. Parallel Verses KJV: Teach us what we shall say unto him; for we cannot order our speech by reason of darkness. WEB: Teach us what we shall tell him, for we can't make our case by reason of darkness.