The reality of prayer

by Edward M. Bounds

Nowhere in prophet or priest, king or ruler, of synagogue or church, does the ministry of prayer assume such marvels of variety, power and fragrance as in the life of Jesus Christ. It is the aroma of God’s sweetest spices, aflame with God’s glory, and consumed by God’s will.

We find in this Gethsemane prayer that which we find nowhere else in the praying of Christ. “O, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” This is different from the whole tenor and trend of His praying and doing. How different from His sacerdotal prayer! “Father, I will,” is the law and life of that prayer. In His last directions for prayer, He makes our will the measure and condition of prayer. “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” He said to the Syro-phœnician woman, “Great is thy faith! Be it unto thee as thou wilt.”

But in Gethsemane His praying was against the declared will of God. The pressure was so heavy upon Him, the cup was so bitter, the burden was so strange and intolerable, that the flesh cried out for relief. Prostrate, sinking, sorrowful unto death. He sought to be relieved from that which seemed too heavy to bear. He prayed, however, not in revolt against God’s will, but in submission to that will, and yet to change God’s plan and to alter God’s purposes. He prayed. Pressed by the weakness of the flesh, and by the powers of hell in all their dire, hellish malignity and might, Jesus was on this one only occasion constrained to pray against the will of God. He did it, though, with great wariness and pious caution. He did it with declared and inviolable submission to God’s will. But this was exceptional.

Simple submission to God’s will is not the highest attitude of the soul to God. Submission may be seeming, induced by conditions, nothing but an enforced surrender, not cheerful but grudging, only a temporary expedient, a fitful resolve. When the occasion or calamity which called it forth is removed, the will returns to its old ways and to its old self.

Jesus Christ prayed always with this one exception in conformity with the will of God. He was one with God’s plan, and one with God’s will. To pray in conformity with God’s will was the life and law of Christ. The same was law of His praying. Conformity, to live one with God, is a far higher and diviner life than to live simply in submission to God. To pray in conformity—together with God—is a far higher and diviner way to pray than mere submission. At its best state, submission is non-rebellion, an acquiescence, which is good, but not the highest. The most powerful form of praying is positive, aggressive, mightily outgoing and creative. It molds things, changes things and brings things to pass.

Conformity means to “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.” It means to delight to do God’s will, to run with eagerness and ardour to carry out His plans. Conformity to God’s will involves submission, patient, loving, sweet submission. But submission in itself falls short of and does not include conformity. We may be submissive but not conformed. We may accept results against which we have warred, and even be resigned to them.

Conformity means to be one with God, both in result and in processes. Submission may be one with God in the end. Conformity is one with God in the beginning, and the end. Jesus had conformity, absolute and perfect, to God’s will, and by that He prayed. This was the single point where there was a drawing back from God’s processes, extorted by insupportable pain, fear and weariness. His submission was abject, loyal and confiding, as His conformity had been constant and perfect. Conformity is the only true submission, the most loyal, the sweetest and the fullest.

Gethsemane has its lessons of humble supplications as Jesus knelt alone in the garden. Of burdened prostration, as He fell on His face, of intense agony, of distressing dread, of hesitancy and shrinking back, of crying out for relief—yet amid it all of cordial submission to God, accompanied with a singleness of purpose for His glory.

Satan will have for each of us his hour and power of darkness and for each of us the bitter cup and the fearful spirit of gloom.

We can pray against God’s will, as Moses did, to enter the Promised Land; as Paul did about the thorn in the flesh; as David did for his doomed child; as Hezekiah did to live. We must pray against God’s will three times when the stroke is the heaviest, the sorrow is the keenest, and the grief is the deepest. We may lie prostrate all night, as David did, through the hours of darkness. We may pray for hours, as Jesus did, and in the darkness of many nights, not measuring the hours by the clock, nor the nights by the calendar. It must all be, however, the prayer of submission.