The next element in prayer that I notice is Petition. How often we go to prayer-meetings without really asking for anything! Our prayers go all round the world, without anything definite being asked for. We do not expect anything. Many people would be greatly surprised if God did answer their prayers. I remember hearing of a very eloquent man who was leading a meeting in prayer. There was not a single definite petition in the whole. A poor, earnest woman shouted out: “Ask Him summat, man.” How often you hear what is called prayer without any asking! “Ask, and ye shall receive.”
I believe if we put all the stumbling-blocks out of the way, God will answer our petitions. If we put away sin and come into His presence with pure hands, as He has commanded us to come, our prayers will have power with Him. In Luke’s Gospel we have as a grand supplement to the “Disciples’ Prayer,” “Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Some people think God does not like to be troubled with our constant coming and asking. The only way to trouble God is not to come at all. He encourages us to come to Him repeatedly, and press our claims.
I believe you will find three kinds of Christians in the church to-day. The first are those who ask; the second those who seek; and the third those who knock.
“Teacher,” said a bright, earnest-faced boy, “why is it that so many prayers are unanswered? I do not understand. The Bible says, ‘Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you;’ but it seems to me a great many knock and are not admitted.”
“Did you never sit by your cheerful parlor fire,” said the teacher, “on some dark evening, and hear a loud knocking at the door? Going to answer the summons, have you not sometimes looked out into the darkness, seeing nothing, but hearing the pattering feet of some mischievous boy, who knocked but did not wish to enter, and therefore ran away? Thus is it often with us. We ask for blessings, but do not really expect them; we knock, but do not mean to enter; we fear that Jesus will not hear us, will not fulfil His promises, will not admit us; and so we go away.”
“Ah, I see,” said the earnest-faced boy, his eyes shining with the new light dawning in his soul: “Jesus cannot be expected answer runaway knocks. He has never promised it. I mean to keep knocking, knocking, until He cannot help opening the door.”
Too often we knock at mercy’s door, and then run away, instead of waiting for an entrance and an answer. Thus we act as if we were afraid of having our prayers answered.
A great many people pray in that way; they do not wait for the answer. Our Lord teaches us here that we are not only to ask, but we are to wait for the answer; if it does not come, we must seek to find out the reason. I believe that we get a good many blessings just by asking; others we do not get, because there may be something in our life that needs to be brought to light. When Daniel began to pray in Babylon for the deliverance of his people, he sought to find out what the trouble was, and why God had turned away His face from them. So there may be something in our life that is keeping back the blessing; if there is, we want to find it out. Some one, speaking on this subject, has said: “We are to ask with a beggar’s humility, to seek with a servant’s carefulness, and to knock with the confidence of a friend.”
How often people become discouraged, and say they do not know whether or not God does answer prayer! In the parable of the importunate widow, Christ teaches us how we are not only to pray and seek, but to find. If the unjust judge heard the petition of the poor woman who pushed her claims, how much more will our Heavenly Father hear our cry! A good many years ago an Irishman in the State of New Jersey was condemned to be hung. Every possible influence was brought to bear upon the Governor to have the man reprieved; but he stood firm, and refused to alter the sentence. One morning the wife of the condemned man, with her ten children, went to see the Governor. When he came to his office, they all fell on their faces before him, and besought him to have mercy on the husband—the father. The Governor’s heart was moved; and he at once wrote out a reprieve. The importunity of the wife and children saved the life of the man, just as the woman in the parable, who, pressing her claims, induced the unjust judge to grant her request.
It was this that brought the answer to the prayer of blind Bartimeus. The people, and even the disciples, tried to hush him into silence; but he only cried out the louder, “Thou Son of David, have mercy on me!”