Prayer is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the evolving nature of prayer throughout different stages of life.
Charles Spurgeon's quote illustrates how prayer can take on various forms depending on one's life situation. It begins with the innocent and simple prayers of a child, transitions to the passionate pleas of a believer in struggle, and culminates in the serene prayers of a saint approaching death, all highlighting the profound connection between faith and the experience of life.
In practice
During a sermon on the power of faith, one might say, 'As Charles Spurgeon noted, prayer is the lisping of the believing infant...'
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.
The rewards of life and devotion to God are love and inner rapture, and the capacity to receive the light of God.
When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing - nothing.
HEAVEN knows the difference between SUNDAY morning and WEDNESDAY afternoon. God longs to speak as CLEARLY in the workplace as He does in the sanctuary. He longs to be WORSHIPED when we sit at the dinner table and not just when we come to His communion table. You may go days without THINKING of Him, but there's never a moment when He's not thinking of YOU.
If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation. Let this be one aspect of our daily intercession: "God, preserve my soul, and keep my heart and all its ways so that I will not be entangled." When this is true in our lives, a passing temptation will not overcome us. We will remain free while others lie in bondage.
Prayer is the raising of the mind to God. We must always remember this. The actual words matter less.
If Jesus is to become the center of our life, we need to spend time in His presence, before the Tabernacle.
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