| The Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 5 |
Page 9 |
The prayer of our Lord in the Garden is a model for all who would find help in sore need. It was intense in its pleading, but it also breathed the most perfect submission, “Not my will, but thine be done.” No other spirit of prayer is pleasing to God, or bring blessing. The answer did not come, the cup did not pass away, and yet our Lord was really strengthened and helped in his praying. At its close, he came forth with peace in his heart, ready now to pass into the darkness of his cross.
‘How was he helped,” some one may ask, “when that which he craved was not granted?” He was not spared the sorrow, but he was strengthened to endure it. This is God’s way in much of our praying. We do not know what would be a blessing to us. What to our thoughts seems bread, might really be a stone to us. We may make our requests for things we desire, but we should make them humbly and submissively. If it is not our Father’s will to grant us what we wish, he gives us grace to go without it. If he does not avert the trial from which we ask to be spared, he strengthens us for meeting it. Thus no true prayer ever goes unanswered. The divine help never fails. There is a limit to what our human friends can do for us: but God is infinite, and all his strength is ready to our hand, to help us as we need.
Page 9