Summarising ch 11 of Theology of Prayer, by B.M. Palmer

1. Prayer deepens the channel of our religious nature

‘It is the moral and religious element which draws the final distinction between man and the brute.’ In the animal there is the faint trace of reason and affection.

If man’s highest activity is the religious activity, then prayer deepens the channel of this supreme function. ‘Prayer lifts the soul into the immediate presence of God, to feel the power and bear the imprint of all the divine perfections, singly and combined. We bow before the majesty of his supremacy with awe; before his consummate holiness with adoring reverence; before his inviolable justice with mingled fear and trust; before his compassion and grace with confiding gratitude and love.’

2. Prayer imparts truthfulness to character

‘Truth is the foundation on which all human intercourse is based.’ This is true of personal relationships and of business transactions. How much more, then, is truth required in our dealings with the Almighty? A life of prayerlessness is a life of continuous falsehood – denying the creature’s dependence upon the creator.

‘Even the life itself is given…The light which floods a hemisphere shines only as a created sun “rejoices as a strong man to run his race.” The air, with its balmy breath, enters the prison of the body’, and turns the wheels of its complex machinery on their noiseless axle. The obedient earth, under a divine decree, draws from her teeming bosom the fruits which nourish our fainting frame. And above all these, a thousand tender affections spring up in our social life to refresh the soul with their perfume and their bloom.’

‘What untruth can be more pronounced than for a being thus dependent to act as though possessing all resources within himself? This the prayerless man habitually does. He rises in the morning, without so much as a thought directed to him by whose power he has been preserves through the hours of unconscious slumber. He satisfies the cravings of hunger, with as little sensibility as the ox that grazes upon the green pastures of earth. He revels amid the joys of domestic love, without any acknowledgement of the happiness upon which the soul has fed. Year treads upon the heel of year —through, perhaps, a long and prosperous life, without a single expression of grateful dependence upon the Being by whose bounty he has been sustained. How frightfully untruthful such a career appears, when, in every breath that is drawn, in every step that is taken, in every plan that is executed, man passes the delusion on himself of independence which never existed, and the whole life becomes an acted falsehood before God!’

But in prayer ‘the attitude of the creature is now seen to be truthful, because it expresses the just relation in which he stands to (God).’

3. Prayer makes direct issue with all sin, and conforms as far as possible to a perfect standard of rectitude

As sin has marred all the faculties, so grace, working through prayer, strikes at the root of our problem. But prayer does not only break down the selfishness of the human heart, it also reveals our real selfhood. There is a decay of carnal vices, and there is also a corresponding development of Christian graces. So, faith, humility, patience, hope, courage.’

It is simple mockery to confess sin and implore forgiveness, if there is no purpose to abandon sin. It is nothing less than perjury to bewail sin in the presence of infinite justice, while yet “wickedness is sweet in the mouth and is hidden under the tongue.” No; the prayer for pardon is strictly a prayer for holiness – the pledge given of an earnest struggle against the bondage of sin.

‘In this troubled life, so full of temptation and trial, who can estimate the ad­vantage in fixing the mind upon a high ideal, and strengthening the purpose of more complete conformity with a perfect standard? In definitely committing us to this, one of the reflex benefits of prayer is clearly shown.’

4. Prayer strengthens the bond of human brotherhood

‘We come to the mercy-seat in the furniture of all our earthly relations and clothed in the vesture of our natural affections.’

‘The parent, in his closet, bears the hopes and the fears of all his household. The merchant, under the weight of his own perplexities and cares, carries along all who are associated with him in the interlacings and complications of business.’

‘The effect of this in harmonizing the discords of earth is none the less real, because it works in secret and without observation. No man who has left a prayer for his neighbour with the great Father, can harbour a resentful thought or go forth to deeds of unkindness and injury. If all men were given to prayer, contentions and strife would disappear, and this earth would resemble the paradise it was at the beginning.’

5. Prayer fits us for the practical duties of life

Whatever the motive for prayer, it becomes an effective discipline for the discharge of every duty.

The prayer for guidance pledges us to the full exertion of our own powers. The acknowledgement of weakness prevents us from wasting our own efforts in a misdirected way. The expectation of assistance fends us courage, and patience.

Prayer enables las to blend our intelligent agency with that of God. ‘We (all) have  our place in the arithmetic of heaven, and figure in the final computation when the  product is attained.’ The praying soul is not content with an unconscious involve­ment in the formula: ‘it seeks for opportunities of intelligent cooperation with the august Being with whom it is in daily communion.’

6. Prayer lifts Christian experience above its fluctuating frames and renders it constant and equable

‘The tendency is universal, until corrected by grace, to make our present frame of feeling the test and measure of our Christian state.’

Our •feelings are subject to natural temperament, to bodily sickness, and to the wear and tear of excitements. ‘God has constituted the emotions like the tides of the sea – now rising to their flood, then ebbing back to the bosom of the deep; or, to employ another analogy, in the reaction which invariably follows unusual excitement, nature provides a repose to tree spirit akin to that which sleep affords to the body.^,

‘The Christian who looks only to his changing, moods for the evidence of spiritual soundness, will always be in bondage.’    ‘(Prayer) lifts the soul above the dull atmosphere of earth, to breathe the purer air of heaven. It tones the spirit by intimate fellowship with him who is “the Father of our Spirits.” It calls for the exercise of faith when not a ray of comfort breaks through the midnight gloom, and support is found alone in the promises of the covenant.’