The Hidden Life of Prayer, Chapter 3
Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 6:59PM 
After reading the third chapter of The Hidden Life of Prayer by David McIntyre, I still don’t understand why so many are enthusiastic about it. It’s the book to read for the latest round for Reading the Classics Together at Challies.com, and I’m reading along, but finding it a little bit tedious and uninspiring. I’ll give it another week or two. Who knows; my perspective might change as I read more.
This week’s reading was about the attitude we should have when we approach God in prayer. The first point is that we should “realize the presence of God.” By this, McIntyre seems to mean more than that we should simply know and trust that God is there, but that we should feel his presence. In my own experience in prayer, that feeling is a rare thing, and not something that can be “practiced” or even sought, so much as something received as a gift when God chooses to bless in this way. I’m not sure whether that puts me at odds with McIntyre or not. I suspect it might.
The second point is that we need to be honest in prayer. We should “be perfectly frank before Him.” Two examples are given: We should be open with God about our complaints against him and open about our sin. That’s more difficult than is sounds. We know God knows everything about us even better than we do, and yet, sometimes it’s hard to admit things we know to be true about ourselves.
Third, when we pray, we must come to God in faith. Our faith might be feeble, but God still sees it and acknowledges it.
Like the miner, whose trained eye detects the glitter of the precious metal sown in sparse flakes through the coarse grain of the rock, He observes the rare but costly faith which lies imbedded in our unbelief.
That’s a comfort, isn’t it? So is this:
The prayer of faith is a middle term between the intercession of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Christ. It is divinely appointed means by which the unutterable groanings of the Spirit, who dwells within His people as in a temple, are conveyed and committed to the exalted Mediator, who “ever liveth to make intercession” for us.
In this way, we are, in a sense, doing the work of God when we pray to him in faith.
Next up, chapter four, The Engagement: Worship.
Reader Comments (1)
"McIntyre seems to mean more than that we should simply know and trust that God is there, but that we should feel his presence." As with you, I do not think we will feel and sense His presence; He is always there. But we would know if He was not there.
Some time ago, I went back on something I knew God helped me with. I disobeyed and sinned. Later I went to prayer and sensed, knew He was not there. He turned away from me, for discipline. I cannot explain the shock; I felt shattered without Him. Alone. Was this a touch of what Christ felt on the Cross? I went and "corrected" what it was that I disobeyed God in. I went to do something else and did not think about it. All of a sudden, I felt the presence of God envelope me and I wept. No follower of Christ should ever feel the absence of God as I did.
When we pray, we do not feel the presence of God, because He is ALWAYS there. It is when He leaves you that you become aware of it.