“He shall pray to God, and He will delight in him, He shall see His face with joy, For He restores to man His righteousness.” (Job. 33:26).
Samuel Rutherford once said, “We would, in seeking, asking, praying, in adoring God in Christ, enlarge our own desires, heart, will, and affections, broad and deep, that we may take in more of Christ. How do we gain broad desires in adoring God?”
Christians ought never to have narrow prayers for they come from narrow hearts. Prayer set on deep and broad hunger, and extreme pain of loss and a sickness for Christ, and great pinching poverty of spirit, must be in proportion wide and deep. O! but our vessels are narrow, and our affections ebb and low. The balance that weighs Christ is weak; it is as if we should labor to cast three or four great mountains in a scale of a merchant’s ordinary balance. We are proportioned in our spiritual capacities but for drops of grace. Christ is disposed to give grace as a river. It is little to seek corn, wine, and oil from God. He is more willing to give great things than small things. To ask a feather, a penny, from a mighty prince, he says, “Ask what thou wilt, to the half of my kingdom, and it shall be granted to thee,” is the valuing of the greatness of his royal magnificence. “Ask what you will,” Christ says, “of my Father in my name, and it shall be granted.”
Do you pray and ask God for things you want, or things you need? Are they small things? Big things? Small or big in relationship to what? God is the God of the universe. Is there anything too small or too hard for Him to give or do?
Men’s desires usually revolve around the removal of the sword, peace, protection, plenty, trafficking, peaceable seas, liberties of government, subjects, peers, cities. Men’s desires are often little employed in seeking Christ to dwell in the land, and that the temple of the Lord be built. All these suits are below both the goodness of the Lord, and spiritual capacity of sanctified affections; and God gives to carnal men that which their soul lusts after, but in his wrath. Samuel Rutherford, The Trial and Triumph of Faith.
Contemplation:
You are the blessed God, happy in Yourself, source of happiness in Your creatures, my maker, benefactor, proprietor, upholder. You have produced and sustained me, supported and indulged me, saved and kept me; You are in every situation able to meet my needs and miseries.
May I live by You, live for You, never be satisfied with my Christian progress but as I resemble Christ; and may conformity to His principles, temper, and conduct grow hourly in my life. Let Your unexampled love constrain me into holy obedience, and render my duty my delight. If others deem my faith folly, my meekness infirmity, my zeal madness, my hope delusion, my actions hypocrisy, may I rejoice to suffer for Your name.
Keep me walking steadfastly towards the country of everlasting delights, that paradise-land which is my true inheritance. Support me by the strength of heaven that I may never turn back, or desire false pleasures that will disappear into nothing. As I pursue my heavenly journey by Your grace let me be known as a man with no aim but that of a burning desire for You, and the good and salvation of my fellow men.
