| The Building of Character |
Chapter 14 |
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It may become needful to qualify the prayer that our friend shall recover. It may be God’s will that he should now go home. We may still give full vent to love’s yearning that he shall get well; but at the close of our intense supplication we must submit it all to God’s wisdom in the refrain, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” If love be true, it is always the very best thing that we ask for our dear ones when we pray for them; and the best — God’s best — for them may be, not longer life in this world, but heaven, the crowning of their life in immortal glory and blessedness.
Or our friend may be in some trouble. He may be staggering under a heavy load, and it may seem to us that the best blessing which could come to him would be the lifting away of the load. But, as we begin to pray, we remember that the truest and most loving prayer for him must be that he shall stand perfect and complete in all God’s will. Possibly his load is part of God’s will to bring out the best that is in him.
In all our praying for our friends we are to think first of their higher, spiritual good. We are to seek for them above all things that they may grow into all the beauty of perfect Christian character. It is a poor, superficial friendship which desires chiefly our friend’s present ease and mere earthly good. It is asking for him a stone instead of bread, a scorpion instead of an egg, or a serpent instead of a fish. Those who seek for their friends only earthly things, are choosing for them only the husks, and omitting to choose for them the golden grain which would feed their immortal nature. We sin against our loved ones when we seek for them merely the things or own frail, shortsighted judgment may desire for them. Love is true only when it rises into heavenly heights, and craves, for those that are dear, the things of God’s own blessed perfect will. This is not always easy. It is hard for us to say, “They will be done,” when it means that or loved one must endure sore pain, or walk in deep shadows, or be humbled under God’s mighty hand.
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