5. "_My God will hear me._" _What a blessed prospect!_--I see it--all the failures of my past life have been owing to the lack of this faith. My failure, especially in the work of intercession, has had its deepest root in this--I did not live in the full faith of the blessed assurance, "_My God will hear me!_" Praise God! I begin to see it--I believe it. All can be different. Or, rather, I see Him, I believe Him. "_My God will hear me!_" Yes, me, even me! Commonplace and insignificant though I be, filling but a very little place, so that I will scarce be missed when I go--even I have access to this Infinite God, with the confidence that He heareth me. One with Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, I dare to say: "I will pray for others, for I am sure my God will listen to me: '_My God will hear me._'" What a blessed prospect before me--every earthly and spiritual anxiety exchanged for the peace of God, who cares for all and hears prayer. What a blessed prospect in my work--to know that even when the answer is long delayed, and there is a call for much patient, persevering prayer, the truth remains infallibly sure--"_My God will hear me!_"
And what a blessed prospect for Christ's Church if we could but all give prayer its place, give faith in God its place, or, rather, _give the prayer-hearing God His place_! Is not this the one great thing, those, who in some little measure begin to see the urgent need of prayer, ought in the first place to pray for. When God, at the first, time after time, poured forth the Spirit on His praying people, He laid down the law for all time: as much of prayer, so much of the Spirit. Let each one who can say, "_My God will hear me_," join in the fervent supplication, that throughout the Church that truth may be restored to its true place, and the blessed prospect will be realised: a praying Church endued with the power of the Holy Ghost.
6. "_My God will hear me._" _What a need of Divine teaching!_--We need this, both to enable us to hold this word in living faith, and to make full use of it in intercession. It has been said, and it cannot be said too often or too earnestly, that the one thing needful for the Church of our day is, the power of the Holy Spirit. It is just because this is so, from the Divine side, that we may also say as truly that, from the human side, the one thing needful is, more prayer, more believing, persevering prayer. In speaking of lack of the Spirit's power, and the condition for receiving it, someone used the expression--the block is not on the perpendicular, but on the horizontal line. It is to be feared that it is on both. There is much to be confessed and taken away in us if the Spirit is to work freely. But it is specially on the perpendicular line that the block is--the upward look, and the deep dependence, and the strong crying to God, and the effectual prayer of faith that avails--all this is sadly lacking. And just this is the one thing needful.
Shall we not all set ourselves to learn the lesson which will make prevailing prayer possible--the lesson of a faith that always sings, "_My God will hear me_"? Simple and elementary as it is, it needs practice and patience, it needs time and heavenly teaching, to learn it aright. Under the impression of a bright thought, or a blessed experience, it may look as if we knew the lesson perfectly. But ever again the need will recur of making this our first prayer--that God who hears prayer would teach us to believe it, and so to pray aright. If we desire it we can count upon Him He who delights in hearing prayer and answering it, He who gave His Son that He might ever pray for us and with us, and His Holy Spirit to pray in us, we can be sure there is not a prayer that He will hear more certainly than this: that He so reveal Himself as the prayer-hearing God, that our whole being may respond, "_My God will hear me._"