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Lamentations 3:44:
44Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
When a child wants to ask his father for something, he first seeks him; and only when he has found his father, does he ask him for what he wants. To begin to speak, before his father has been found would be childish foolishness, an evidence of insistence without sense.
Is there no hint in this with regard to our prayer?
He who as child of God will pray to his Father in heaven, and in faith desires something from Him, must needs first go to Him, must first seek Him, and only when he has found Him, can he ask what he desires.
But in connection with prayer, this is oftentimes little thought of, and time and again one observes in his own prayer and in that of others that there is more talking in the air than there is prayer and address made to the living God. Nor can it be denied that, especially in extemporaneous prayer with others, and not least in church, there is sometimes more reasoning and arguing than actual speaking to the most high God, who is clothed with Majesty.
There is less to be said about prayer in secret. With this every one has only the observation of his own prayer at his disposal, or what others themselves may tell of it. But even if one confines himself to this, the complaints whispered in a brother's ear about the barrenness of prayer are sufficiently many to justify the fear that even, in secret prayer, sometimes, the muttering or speaking of words already begins before the soul is conscious that it has found its God back again.
Much prayer and long prayer encourage this habit. The eyes are closed, the hands are folded, and now one begins with certain formal prayers that have been learned by heart, not irreverently, but yet certainly not with that very profound reverence which becomes us before God. Even by the voice and by the tone of the prayer you sometimes feel that it is a mere form, and by no means a speaking to God.
Scripture repeatedly shows us, therefore, that not every prayer counts as such with God.
It speaks to us of times when our prayer is hindered, and makes us hear the word of the Lord: "When ye make many prayers, I will not hear" (Isaiah 1:15); and it records for us the complaint of the prophet Jeremiah (Lamentations 3:44), "Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through."
Then the heaven is as brass; then there is no opening and no unlocking; then there is no access and no entrance; and there is no spirit of grace and of supplication.
In Zion there was an "oracle of God's holiness." And when the godly Jew wandered in the mountains or tarried at his homestead by the Jordan, he turned himself when he prayed toward this oracle (Psalm 28:2). When Israel was in exile, they prayed likewise with their faces toward Zion.
As a relic of this, it is still the custom in many countries and in many communions that, for the purpose of earnest prayer, people do not stay at home but go into the churches. For this purpose, such church buildings are open all day long, and in the solemn seclusion of such a stately edifice, one kneels down unobserved and unknown in the expectation that in this impressive place the nearness of the Lord will more effectually reveal itself.
Especially to him who with a large family is confined to close quarters at home this undeniably offers an advantage. He who at home can always find an empty room at his disposal, where he can lock the door, and can spend some moments alone with God, has no need of this. But the great masses of people are not so fortunate. In those circles one is almost never alone, there is almost never quiet, and seclusion which is so greatly helpful to prayer can almost never be found. From the heights of spirituality one may condemn all such quiet prayer in an empty church as an evidence that one attaches too great significance to a so-called consecrated place; but he who so speaks, has presumably never known the painful lack of living in a home, where hardly ever a quiet moment for private prayer can be found.
But apart from this home difficulty, it must never be forgotten, that in Israel, God Himself had appointed such an oracle of His holiness, and had directed the souls of the faithful towards it.
There lay in this a measure of education by which from formal and outward muttering to attain real prayer, i. e., a speaking to God.
Thus the pious Jew was reminded every time, that in order to be able to pray, he must first with the eye of the soul get sight of God, and that before he begins to pray, connection must have been made between his soul and God.
To pray without first having found God and knowing that now He can be addressed, is really only a caricature of prayer.
He who would pray must know that at that very moment God regards the voice of his prayer; that He inclines His ear to our prayer; that He listens to our supplication. And this spiritual sense can not be awake in your soul unless before you pray you have placed yourself with full consciousness before His Face.
God's child always prays in Jesus' Name. He must do this because, unreconciled and unredeemed, he would find no listening ear with God. But this prayer in Jesus' Name becomes a word without sense when one does not first place himself before the Face of the Holy One, and feel that of himself he has no right of approach, and that therefore he only appears before his God covered in Christ.
What presents the difficulty here, is the omnipresence of God.
It is the very perception of faith, that God is neither bound to time nor place, and that He is everywhere present, which accounts for the fact that one inclines to speak in the air without first concentrating his thoughts upon God, placing Him before our eyes, and seeking His Face until He has been found.
Yet God Himself in His Word teaches us otherwise.
Even though Scripture reveals the omnipresence of God to us in the most glorious terms, this has never any other meaning with respect to prayer than that we, wherever we are, always and everywhere can find our God. But equally strongly it reveals to us, that in whatever place we are, we have to do with the living God, Who besets us behind and before, Who compasseth our path and our lying down, and Who is acquainted with all our ways (Ps. 139, 5, 2).
And with all this, it always points us upward. In prayer we must lift up our soul. To the heavens our prayerful thoughts must direct themselves. There is a throne of grace, where God's Majesty shines out. It is the palace above, whither our prayers ascend. It is the living, the personal God Who inclines Himself to us, and toward Whom our praying soul must turn.
Truly, your imagination can not come to your help in this, for God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth. But he who knows Him as his Father Who is in heaven, also knows, that he has not to do with a force that extends and spreads itself everywhere, but with his Covenant God, with his Lord and his King, and he can not rest until, in behalf of effectual prayer, he has restored the hidden walk with God and has obtained a new communion with Him.
In former days, when there was no telegraph nor telephone yet known, this seemed far more of an enigma than now. In these our times, on the other hand, we know by experience a communication among men at immeasurable distances, supported by nothing except a weak metal thread. And even this wire has fallen away. There is now a telegraphy without wire, which in its wondrous working has become a beautiful symbol for our prayer. Fellowship with God without any middle-means.
Also the so-called telepathy comes to our aid here. The authenticated facts that persons at far distances can have fellowship of soul with soul and disclosure of thought, is an illustration of how our soul can have fellowship with God and disclosure of thought, because, when even the human soul already is able to do this, with God the means of spiritual fellowship are so infinitely much greater.
The point in question is, that in and with our prayer we must attend to the indispensability of this fellowship, and not enter upon prayer, until we have obtained this connection with God, this communication with God, this access unto God.
When Jeremiah complains that his prayer did not "pass through," because God had covered Himself with a cloud, he shows thereby that he had sought this fellowship, and that he had perceived that he could get no connection.
As when one stands before the telephone and rings up central, and gets no reply because the wire is broken, so he who prays stands before heaven and calls after God for a hearing, seeks connection of fellowship—but there comes no sign of life in return.
This, then, shows that real prayer can not begin before you have obtained a hearing, before you have connection, and until you know that God's Face has discovered itself to you.
If, now, there is no connection, then your prayer is hindered; and the fault lies with you. It is either your sin, the wandering of your thoughts, the being engaged with worldly concerns, a wrong state of mind, or the superficiality and externality of the condition of your soul.
The man who prays from sheer habit pays no attention to this. He prays any way, even though every feeling and sense of connection is wanting, yea, even when he perceives that his prayer does not pass through. He has said his prayers, and that is the end of it.
But the genuine, godly man of prayer does not behave like this. If he feels that there is a hindrance, if he is aware that there is a cloud between himself and God, he turns in upon himself, he humbles himself before God, and seeks the sprinkling of the Blood of his Savior. And then the connection follows, the gates of heaven swing open to him, and in the end his prayer passes through and ascends before the Face of the Holy One.
This is the sanctifying power of the conscientious practice of prayer.
If at first there is no prayer, let no one rise from his knees until prayer comes and access to the throne of grace has been obtained.
And in this very struggle, the break with sin takes place and the grace in Christ is restored.
* * * * * * *This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."
The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit
Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.
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