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I.
The words mean first of all that we are to pray and ask for things. Now this involves (1) the recognition of our need of them, and (2) the utterance of that need.
i. That we recognise our Need.
1. This seems to be expressed in the text itself according to the Authorized Version — " What things soever ye desire, when ye pray." There, however, the word " desire " is used in the sense of request, just as we find it again in John xii. 2 1 , where we are told that certain Greeks who came up to worship at the feast came to Philip, "and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus," and as Shakespeare has it in The Merchant of Venice (IV. i. 402): "I humbly do desire your grace of pardon." Yet the sense of need is undoubtedly one of the conditions of prayer, and Dr. Andrew Murray ^ is quite entitled to write as though the word " desire " in the Authorized Version were used in that sense. "What things soever ye desire," he quotes, and then says : Desire is the secret power that moves the whole world of living men, and directs the course of each. And so desire is the soul of prayer, and the cause of insufficient or unsuccessful prayer is very much to be found in the lack or feebleness of desire. Some may doubt this : they are sure that they have very earnestly desired what they ask. But if they consider whether their desire has indeed been as whole-hearted as God would have it, as the heavenly worth of these blessings demands, they may come to see that it was indeed the lack of desire that was the cause of failure. What is true of God is true of each of His blessings, and is the more true the more spiritual the blessing : " Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart" (Jer. xxix. 13). Of Judah in the days of Asa it is written, " They sought him with their whole desire" (2 Chron. xv. 15). A Christian may often have very earnest desires for spiritual blessings. But alongside of these there are other desires in his daily life occupying a large place in his interests and affections. The spiritual desires are ^ The Ministry oj IrUereession, 106
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not all-absorbing. He wonders that his prayer is not heard. It is simply that God wants the whole heart. " The Lord thy God is one lord, therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart."
2, The best illustration that we are likely to find — and it is an illustration not only of this point but of the whole text — is furnished by the story of the ten lepers (Luke xvii. 11-14): " And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: and they lifted up their voices, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go and shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, as they went, they were cleansed."
The facts to notice in this incident are these: (1) they knew that they were lepers and needed cleansing ; (2) they asked Jesus to cleanse them ; (3) when He said " Go and shew yourselves unto the priests," although they felt and saw no difference in themselves, they took His word for it that they were cleansed, and acted upon it ; (4) afterwards, as they were on the way to the priests, they knew that they were cleansed. That they did not know till they had gone some distance is evident, for we are told that one of them, as soon as he saw that he was healed, turned back, and thanked Jesus. We have reached as yet, however, only the first of these four facts — the recognition of a need.
^ We have wants, and we feel them : honest wants of body as of soul, wants personal, wants domestic, as well as all such aspira- tions as may seem to be of wider or higher scope. Are not these things true and proper subjects of prayer ? " Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven " is not, after all, the whole of the Lord's Prayer. Is it not followed at once by the more material — " Give us this day our daily bread " ? Yes, most true indeed. Every need for body or soul, for ourselves or our children, our friends or our neighbours, in all the detail and variety which belong to vivid personal interest; it is all most true and holy subject- matter for prayer.^
^ All ih^gs whatsoever. At this first word our human wisdom at once begins" to "doubt and ask : This surely cannot be literally true ? But if it be not, why did the Master speak it, using the
1 E. 0. Moberly.
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very strongest expression He could find : " All things whatsoever " ? And it is not as if this were the only time He spoke thus ; is it not He who also said, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth " ; " If ye have faith, nothing shall be impossible to you " ? Faith is so wholly the work of God's Spirit through His word in the prepared heart of the believing disciple, that it is impossible that the fulfilment should not come ; faith is the pledge and forerunner of the coming answer.^