In prayer, we stand where angels bow with veiled faces. There, even there, the cherubim and seraphim adore before that selfsame throne to which our prayers ascend. And shall we come there with stunted requests and narrow, contracted faith?
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of approaching prayer with sincerity and openness, as we stand before a divine presence.
Charles Spurgeon's quote highlights the profound significance of prayer as a sacred act where we share our deepest thoughts and desires with a higher power. He contrasts the reverence shown by celestial beings with the limitations we sometimes impose on our own requests, urging us to have a broader and more faithful perspective when we engage in prayer, reflecting on the divine nature of our communication with the spiritual realm.
In practice
During a church service, when discussing the importance of faith and prayer.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
Remember God is not surprised by your inabilities, your imperfections, or your faults. He has always known everything about you that you are just now finding out, and he chose you on purpose for himself.
Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say, "I will endure this until I can get away and pray." Pray now - draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God's grace through prayer.
If Jesus is to become the center of our life, we need to spend time in His presence, before the Tabernacle.
Prayer might not change things, but it will change my perspective of things. Prayer might not change the past, but inevitably, it changes the present.
Jesus' pattern prayer, which is both crutch, road, and walking lesson for the spiritually lame like ourselves, tells us to start with God: for God matters infinitely more than we do.
In using all means, seek God alone. In and through every outward thing, look only to the power of His Spirit, and the merits of His Son. Beware you do not get stuck in the work itself; if you do, it is all lost labor. Nothing short of God can satisfy your soul. Therefore, fix on Him in all, through all, and above all...Remember also to use all means as means-as ordained, not for their own sake.
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