| The Building of Character |
Chapter 14 |
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Thus we get hints of the truth that the noblest, divinest way of helping our friends is by prayer. It follows, therefore, that we sin against them when we do not help them in this best and truest of all ways — by praying for them. The parent who does not pray for a child, whatever else he may do for him, sins against the child. Whoever fails to pray for one he loves fails in the most sacred duty of love, because he withholds love’s best help. “A prayerlesss love may be tender, and may speak murmuring words of sweetest sound; but it lacks the deepest expression and the noblest music of speech. We never help our dear ones so well as when we pray for them.”
It is pleasant to think that this best of all service for others we can render even when unable to do any active work on their behalf. A “shut in” who can run no errands and lift no burdens and speak no words of cheer to busy toilers and sore strugglers in the great world, can yet pray for them, and God will send truest help. Said a good man, when laid aside from active service: “One thought has assumed a new reality in my mind of late, as an offshoot of my useless life. When a man can do nothing else, he can add his little rill to the great river of intercessory prayer which is always rolling up to the throne of God. The river is made up of such rills, as the ocean is of drops. A praying man can never be a useless man.”
Again the same writer says: “You do not know how my soul longs to get into closer friendship with Christ, and to pray — which is about the only mode of usefulness left to me — as he prayed. To touch the springs of the universe as he touched them! One can almost feel the electric thrill of it.” We cannot tell what intercessory prayer does for the world — for our own lives.
“More things are wrought by prayer
than this world dreams of.”
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