The Importance of Private Prayer

We live in a jet-propelled, noisy, and restless age. Split atoms and split personalities characterize our times. Like Paul, the good we would, we do not, and the evil we would not, that we do (Rom. 7:19). Ours is a generation marked by uncertainty and fraught with fear. Personal, national and international tensions have taken their toll. We have lost our moorings, and attempt to cover our anxiety and frustration under a blanket of sound and motion. Speaking to this situation, Editor Norman Cousins of The Saturday Review has said, “Plainly this is not the age of meditative man. It is a squinting, sprinting, shoving age. Substitutes for repose are a million-dollar business. Silence, already the nation’s most critical shortage, is almost a nasty word. Modern man may or may not be obsolete, but he is certainly wired for sound and has ants in his pants.”

Our problem is not new, nor is it without antidote. More than 27 centuries ago Isaiah proclaimed to a restless people, “In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength” (Isa. 30:15). To a troubled land the Psalmist declared, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10). Christ, speaking to his exhausted disciples, said, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while” (Mark 6:31); and on the night of his betrayal he commanded them, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41).

These words suggest the solution to our problem. The importance of private prayer cannot be overestimated. We are busy people living in a hurried age, and find ourselves engaged in countless pursuits which sap our strength, time, and energy. In activism we neglect our prayer life, only to find ourselves lacking the wisdom, direction, and purpose that such a life affords. Until we learn to cultivate this prayer life we will always be at loose ends. Jesus’ words “without me, ye can do nothing” (John 15:5) are pragmatically true.

Private Prayer As A Defense

Private prayer is important because it provides the Christian with a formidable defense against life’s perplexities and difficulties. “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation,” said Jesus to his disciples. The word temptation in the New Testament can mean at least two things—to be lured and enticed to evil or to be tested and tried as by affliction and sorrow. While Christ obviously addressed an immediate circle and situation when he spoke these words, they are nonetheless universally and comprehensively true. Private prayer is a defense against both enticement to sin and the sorrows and afflictions of life. Prayer and watchfulness mean vital contact with God; they are our defense, for in their practice we see life in proper perspective and discover the meaning of Isaiah’s assurance, “… they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isa. 40:31).

There is no stronger weapon against the power of evil in our lives than private prayer. This is why the Scriptures so frequently enjoin us to pray, and why at the same time the powers of evil constantly buffet us to keep us from prayer. It is no coincidence that the giants of Christendom have been men of prayer who were frequently called to endure hardship and suffering. We must not forget that the prelude to Jesus’ ministry was a period of solitude in the wilderness and that he constantly sought the quiet place to commune in prayer with the Father. The account in the Book of Acts concerning the establishment of the church notes that “… they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). And in studying the life of Paul we are impressed by the place of prayer and solitude in his preparation and ministry. He had his Arabia at the outset, and throughout his years of service a continuing fellowship with Christ in prayer.

While addressed to ministers, John Henry Jowett’s words are true for all believers:

I am profoundly convinced that one of the greatest perils which beset the … [Christians] … of this country is a restless scattering of energies over an amazing multiplicity of interests, which leaves no margin of time or strength for receptive and absorbing communion with God. We are tempted to be always on the run,’ and to measure our fruitfulness by our pace.… We are not always doing the most business when we seem to be most busy. We may think we are truly busy when we are really only restless, and a little studied retirement would greatly enrich our returns. We are great only as we are God possessed; and scrupulous appointments in the upper room with the Master will prepare us for the toil and hardships of the most strenuous campaign” (The Preacher: His Life and Work, New York, Harper, 1912, pp. 62–63).

It is the presence of Christ realized in private prayer that is our defense against the inroads of evil and the strain of trial. It was this truth that occasioned Paul’s words, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:13), and John’s assurance “… greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

Private Prayer As A Discipline

Private prayer is also a discipline. Perhaps failure to learn this discipline of prayer explains why many Christians have not discovered the defense that prayer provides against temptation and evil. Christ told his disciples to ‘watch and pray.” Prayer is not some perfunctory ritual; it is work and involves time and effort. Our emphasis on group dynamics and “togetherness” has frequently overlooked this truth. While being sensitive to the voices of the crowd, we have not realized that the crowd is a fearful thing, that its standards of success are unreliable and a menace to valid self-evaluation. The street needs our expressions of activity and faith, but he who has learned the discipline of prayer will be the strongest spiritually and the most fruitful in Christ’s service among men.

But what is our usual experience? Noise—motion—throngs—rarely the secret place. Radios lull us to sleep at night and awaken us in the morning. We have music while we work, while we shop, and while we study. Television has telescoped world events, sports, and plays into our homes. From morning until night the continuing noise and activity externalize and secularize our life, luring our interest to peripheral things and constantly draining our emotions and nerves of vitality. As T. S. Eliot describes the situation:

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word—

Where is the life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowing?

We shall never search out the riches of God nor even begin to know ourselves until we establish the discipline of private prayer. Only thus can we maintain our fidelity to Christ and the integrity of our own soul. With its noise and false standards the crowd gives a distorted view of life. We see the text but not the context, facts but not relationships. The discipline of prayer provides perspective.

There are many avenues of service, but we can not fulfill them until we are prepared. Peter learned this. His potential was great, and once prepared, there was little he could not do. But when Christ said, “watch and pray,” Peter slept. Although full of good intentions, and even of confident boasts, Peter was not qualified for service until he learned the discipline of prayer.

Prayer requires time and determination and it taxes our strength. But it is essential to Christian fruitfulness. In the sermon he preached at his mother’s funeral, Clarence Macartney gives a telling picture of her disciplined prayer life.

She taught me to pray!… not merely by precept and commandment, but by example. She … realized that she had brought into the world immortal souls with an infinite capacity for joy and happiness. She travailed in prayer that she might discharge with the utmost fidelity the high and holy office of motherhood.… She paid the price of spiritual power by continually waiting upon God. The beneficient river of her life was fed by an unfailing fountain of communion with God. She endured as seeing Him who is invisible. She was not content with morning and evening worship which was held daily in this home, but had her own time and place of intercession. Well do I remember the room and the hour when we all knew that mother was not to be disturbed, for she was on her knees praying for her children. Then to our childish hearts it seemed a small thing, but now, looking backward across the years, we begin through our tears to discern its significance” (“A Son’s Tribute to His Mother” in Hurlbut’s Great Sermons by Great Preachers, Philadelphia, Winston, 1927, p. 620).

Private Prayer As A Declaration

Besides being a defense and a discipline, private prayer is also a declaration, a testimony. By cultivating and practicing the devotional life we give witness to our faith and loyalty to Christ, for the extent and quality of our prayer life will invariably be in direct proportion to our commitment to him. Our busyness in Christian activity may delude both us and others as to our piety, but the time spent in the quiet place is what really tells the tale.

Thomas Hooker, a Puritan divine of more than three centuries ago, admonished New Englanders in this regard.

Labour to give attendance daily to the promise of grace and Christ, drive all other suitors away from the soule, and let nothing come between the promise and it, and forbid all other banes.… Let not thy heart onely see the promise once in a week, but shut out all others, and keep company onely with that, and see what beauty and strength, and grace there is in the same. (Douglas Horton, The Meaning of Worship, New York, Harper, 1959, p. 78).

If Christ is Lord of our lives communion in prayer will be the reasonable response of a loving heart. If Christ is truly loved, our devotional life will be transformed from a duty to a delight and from a mere form to a spiritual force.

Closely related to our love for Christ is our commitment to him, as implied by Jesus’ words, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love” (John 15:10). Private prayer declares this commitment, for here we bare our souls to God. Withholding nothing, we seek his pardon, his wisdom, and the knowledge of his will. In private prayer our total being is transformed and renewed, for “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Cor. 5:17). As Archbishop Trench exclaimed:

Lord, what a change within us one short hour

Spent in thy presence will avail to make!

In other words, our transformed lives will be a visible declaration of our commitment. This transformation is wrought largely in prayer.

Christian maturity is impossible without private prayer. For it is private prayer that waters the seed of faith and encourages spiritual fruitfulness. As a defense against the enticements of evil and the tests of affliction; as a discipline to strength and character; and as a declaration of our love and commitment, private prayer is absolutely essential to Christian growth. Because our spirit may be willing, but our flesh weak, we must “watch and pray.”

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