To be near unto God - pagina 325

God must lend help and assistance and of self. deliverance. And so it comes to appear at times that God is and exists merely for our sakes, for our benefit, to deliver us from trouble. But love Love for God in prayer is, that is different. first of all we are concerned with the things that glorify God's name, God's honor and G;od's power. If it be true that love alone maketh rich and exalteth the soul, it is grace, and nothing but seeking grace, when by temporary withholdings of answers to our prayers God initiates us more fully into the life of love, represses egoism in our prayers, and in our prayer-life also quickens love. Hence when an answer to prayer tarries, let not the soul grow faint. Apart from the fact that an answer is not immediately necessary, and that it is frequently shown later on that in his own time God granted the request, there is no reason why, when God withholds an answer, we need to despair. When saints in Old- and New-Testament times were tried along this line, and our blessed Savior endured it in the dark hour of death upon the cross, why then should we be spared? The very restraint on the part of God, when the soul cries out to him, may be the token, that he loves the soul more than we ourselves; that he wants to raise the life of the soul and the life of prayer to higher vantage grounds; that he desires to initiate us into the deeper ways of love; and that by not answering our prayer he prepares us for a more glorious future, when we shall pray

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