Time For
Everything But Prayer
By Horatius Bonar
(From Herald of His Coming)
Horatius Bonar, a Scottish
Presbyterian minister of
We have not been people of prayer. The spirit of prayer has slumbered amongst us. The closet has been too little frequented and delighted in. We have allowed business, study or active labor to interfere with our closet hours. And the feverish atmosphere in which both the church and nation are enveloped has found its way into our closet, disturbing the sweet calm of its blessed solitude. Sleep, company, idle visiting, foolish talking and jesting, idle reading, unprofitable occupations, engross time that might have been redeemed for prayer.
Why is there so little anxiety to get time to pray? Why is there so little forethought in the laying out of time and employments so as to secure a large portion of each day for prayer? Why is there so much speaking, yet so little prayer? Why is there so much running to and fro, yet so little prayer? Why so much bustle and business, yet so little prayer? Why so many meetings with our fellow men, yet so few meetings with God?
Why so little being alone, so little
thirsting of the soul for the calm, sweet hours of unbroken solitude, when God
and His child hold fellowship together as if they could never part? It is the
want of these solitary hours that not only injures our own growth in grace but
makes us such unprofitable members of the
In order to grow in grace, we must be much alone. It is not in society – even Christian society – that the soul grows most rapidly and vigorously. In one single quiet hour of prayer it will often make more progress than in days of company with others. It is in the desert that the dew falls freshest and the air is purest. So with the soul. It is when none but God is nigh; when His presence alone, like the desert air in which there is mingled no noxious breath of man, surrounds and pervades the soul; it is then that the eye gets the clearest, simplest view of eternal certainties; it is then that the soul gathers in wondrous refreshment and power and energy.
And so it is also in this way that we become truly useful to others. It is when coming out fresh from communion with God that we go forth to do His work successfully. It is in the closet that we get our vessels so filled with blessing, that, when we come forth, we can not contain it to ourselves but must, as by a blessed necessity, pour it out whithersoever we go.
We have not stood "continually upon the watchtower in the daytime," nor have we been "set in the ward whole nights" (Isa. 21:8). Our life has not been a lying in wait for the voice of God. "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth" (1 Sam. 3:10), has not been the attitude of our souls, the guiding principle of our lives. Nearness to God, fellowship with God, waiting upon God, resting in God, have been too little the characteristic either of our private or our ministerial walk. Hence our example has been so powerless, our labors so unsuccessful, our sermons so meager, our whole ministry so fruitless and feeble.
From Words to Winners of Souls by Horatius Bonar.