We lose many prayers for the lack of two things that support each other, specification of object and intensity of desire. A person’s interest in such an exercise as this is necessarily dependent on the co-existence of these two qualities. In the diary of Dr. Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), we find recorded this petition: “Make me sensible of real answers to actual requests, as evidences of an interchange between myself on earth and my Savior in heaven.” Another old writer writes as follows: “When I am out of heart, I follow David’s example, and fly for refuge to prayer; and he furnishes me with a store of prayer. I am bound to acknowledge that I have always found that my prayers have been heard and answered in almost every instance. I have received what I have asked for, hence, I feel permitted to offer up my prayers for everything that concerns me. I am inclined to imagine that there are no little things with God. His hand is as manifest in the feathers of a butterfly’s wing, in the eye of an insect, in the folding and packing of a blossom, in the curious aqueducts by which a leaf is nourished as in the creation of a world, and in the laws by which planets move.” Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) said, “Easiness of desire is a great enemy to the success of a good man’s prayer. It must be an intent, zealous, busy, operative prayer. For consider what a huge indecency it is that a man should speak to God for a thing that he values not. Our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg tamely for those things for which we ought to die; which more precious than imperial scepters, richer than the spoils of the sea, or the treasures of Indian hills.” The scriptural examples of prayer have most of them, an unutterable intensity. They are pictures of struggles, in which more of suppressed desire is hinted than that which is expressed. Recall the wrestling of Jacob, “I will not let thee go till thou hast blest me:” and the panting and pouring out of soul of David, “I cried day and night; my throat is dry with calling upon my God’, and the importunity of the Syro-Phoenician woman, with her “Yes, Lord, yet the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs”, and the persistency of Bartimaeus crying out “the more a great deal, Have mercy upon me,”, and the strong crying and tears of our Lord, “If it be possible! If it be possible!” There is no ‘easiness of desire’ here.
“To the hills I lift mine eyes, The everlasting hills; Streaming thence in fresh supplies, My soul the Spirit feels, Will he not his help afford? Help, while yet I ask, is given: God comes down; the God and Lord That made both earth and heaven.”
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