From: The Preacher
*1. What is Prayer*
There are so many lofty definitions of prayer that, sometimes, ordinary folks are forced to wonder if the awesome God ever hears their simple cries also. While such mighty sermons thus put effective prayers beyond the reach of silent whispers, they never fail to show how the same God is meticulous and able to note and punish the tiniest soundless sins of the same wordless ordinary folks. A silent gossip is no less loud in the ears of God than a silent prayer.
Prayer is many things, but prayer is not only those lofty things. Prayer is loud and deep groanings (Hebrews 5:7); prayer is days and days on the knees before the Lord, sometimes forty days and forty nights alone in the wilderness, with wild beasts and desperate devils – but not without succoring angels (Mark 1:13); prayer is hours upon hours of speaking in tongues, firing the soul (1 Corinthians 14:18); prayer is whole nights on the cold mountains of Transfiguration and in the treacherous gardens of Gethsemane (Matthew 17:1-6; 26:36-46); prayer is that massive congregational outcry that shakes the place and brings down revival (Acts 4:31; 2:1-4). Prayer is all of these, but prayer is much more.
Prayer is not necessarily defined and fortified by the volume of the noise, otherwise the people of God would not have lost the ark of God to the Philistines after the powerful earth-shaking prayer-shouts led by Hophni and Phinehas the corrupt priests in the house of God. God is not in every noise. The mighty Elijah learnt that only in the evening of his ministry (1 Kings 19:11-13). From hindsight, we can even say that Hannah’s wordless sobs at the altar of God had been more effective than the double priests-assisted, holy ark-supported religious mighty shouts of Israel’s warriors facing the Philistines; that one feeble woman’s cry had been louder in the ears of the Father than the mighty shouts of those many men.
And when the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again … And the Philistines were afraid … And the Philistines fought … And the ark of God was taken (1 Samuel 4:5-11).
*2. God is not in Every Noise*
Whereas we are urged to “make a joyful noise unto the LORD” (Psalm 66:1), God is not in every noise we make. Lofty as some prayers could be, they do not represent all effective prayers. Profound prayer could also be as simple as a speechless sigh and a cry (Ezekiel 9:4); as apparently despicable as a wordless whimper before the seeing and hearing Heavenly Daddy – a penitent whimper that others loftier in matters of God might disparage and dismiss as reprehensible drunkenness (1 Samuel 1:12-16; Acts 2:13). It took time for Elijah the prophet of fire to learn that the mighty God is not defined only by fires and earthquakes and rock-rending mighty winds. He is no less the same mighty God in a still small voice than when He comes in a mighty rushing wind (1 Kings 19:11-13). He might speak in mighty fires to confound false prophets and a backslidden nation on Mount Carmel, but He knows better to speak in a soothing still small voice to a depressed child frightened by Jezebel’s threats. A silent gossip is no less loud in the ears of God than a silent prayer. He is not more disposed to note our sins than to hear our cries.
*3. The Prayer of a Child’s Cry*
While Hagar sojourned from Abraham with Ishmael her son, she got to a waterless wilderness, with her resources exhausted. Fatigued in body and soul, she sat down and cried, leaving her child a distance away to die, because she could not bear to hear him cry. Then something happened:
And God heard the voice of the lad. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her, “What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is”_ (Genesis 21:17, NKJV).
It says here that “God heard the voice of the lad.”_ God heard the young boy’s cry. The mother had also been crying but, according to the angel of God, what Heaven had heard and was responding to at that moment was not the cry of the mother but the cry or “voice” of the lad.
What is the language of a cry? What is the meaning of a cry? What grammar guides a cry? What device decodes a cry, especially that of a little lad? Where can we find the dictionary of tears? If mothers are able to decode the meanings of their infant’s cry: for food, for attention, for a change of their wet diapers, God is a more tender Parent. He understands the meaning of a wordless cry, even when it is that of a child abandoned under a tree to die. O my God, with the Psalmist I call out this day, “Put thou my tears in thy bottle”_ (Psalm 56:8). Amen.
What mighty prayer was that child’s cry? Who would ever invite such a lad to teach at their international prayer conferences on the meaning and mysteries of an infant cry? What definitions of ‘powerful prayer’ will include such an innocent cry – of a child? What is prayer?
From The Preacher’s diary.
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