Mark 11:24 Therefore I say to you, What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them. The exercise of prayer can only be a blessing to our souls when our own will is entirely merged in the will of our heavenly Father. If we only knew the truth, we should find that prayer is more connected with the discipline of the will than we generally imagine. Our will is not naturally in harmony with God's. The carrying out of our own will, when bent on some desired object, is what invariably characterises us. It becomes habitual to us. We carry it, more or less, as a habit into the presence of God. It must not be, however. Wilfulness is not a characteristic of one of God's children. He is but a child, and he must know it. The Father's will is best; the child must know no will but His. It must be crossed, however painful it may be. To subdue that will, to blend it with His, and to make us perfectly happy under the conviction that our own is not to be carried out, is the only true explanation of many an unanswered prayer, many a bitter cup still unremoved, and many a thorn still left rankling in the flesh. But when the heart has been brought into that state when it can, with happy, confiding trust, look up and say, "Father, not my will, but Thine, be done!" then will relief come. The thorn, indeed, may not be extracted, the cup may not be removed, but there will appear the strengthening angel from heaven enabling us to bear it. (F. Whitfield.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. |
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