| The Ministry of Comfort |
Chapter 11 |
Page 6 |
Much instruction is found in the order of the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. We are apt to think first of our own frets and worries, our own wants and desires, when we come to God, and to begin at once to pour these into His ear. But it is not thus that we are taught by our Master to do. Half of the Lord’s Prayer is finished before there is a word about the earthly needs of him who is praying. We are to pray first for the hallowing of our Father’s name. It is a great deal more important that we in our own life shall be interpreters of God, than that our burden shall be lifted away, our business prospered, our sorrows comforted. Next we are to pray for the coming of our Father’s kingdom. This desire should be dearer to our heart than anything that concerns merely our own comfort, pleasure of advancement. Then we are to ask that God’s will may be done in earth as it is in heaven. Of course it is the will of God as it concerns our own personal life that we have to do with immediately. We are to seek that our will may be lost in His that the law of heaven shall become the law within the realm our own heart. This, too, must come before any mention of need of ours.
It is not a mere accident that the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are arranged as they are. The order certainly teaches us that the first things in prayer are not to be the affairs of our own personal life, but the great matters which concern the name, the kingdom, and the will of God.
“It is not prayer–
This clamour of our eager wants
That fills the air
With wearying, selfish plaints.
“It is true prayer
To seek the Giver more than gift;
God’s life to share,
And love–for this our cry to lift.”
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