Text and art by I. Lilias Trotter
When God delays in fulfilling our little thoughts, it is to have Himself room to work out His great ones.
All the tenor of helplessness and failure… is only meant to make way for the prayer-life of Christ in us, and in fellowship with Him in it which will “make all things new” – no longer a weary wrestling to get access and answers, but catching His thought and swiftly asking alongside in His Name – His the upper tone, ours the undertone so to fill in the harmony.
Praying down rather than praying up – that is the summing up… that the velocity and power of anything that comes down, gains in a ratio of high proportion with the height from which it drops: Even from an aeroplane, a pencil falling will take on the force of a bullet. What might not our prayer power be if it comes down from the throne of the Priest.
It used to seem as if our intercession must sweep round through His and bring back the answer thus – now it has come back to the lesson of “the negative pole” – that all starts with Him – and first sweeps round us – down here – low in our helplessness as Moses was that day sitting on that stone, unable to even keep his hands uplifted.
It has come these days with a new light and power, that the first thing we have to see to, as we draw near to God day by day, is that “our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” If we can listen in stillness, till our souls begin to vibrate to the thing He is thinking and feeling about the matter in question, whether it concerns ourselves or others, we can from that moment begin praying downwards from His throne, instead of praying upwards toward Him.
