The Sense of the Reality of Prayer and the Love of God

Tip! So when we ask Christ to carry out His works in our hearts we are fervently praying that our Father may be glorified in His Son.

A widow once told me about a time in her Christian life, when God's love had seemed cut off in her heart, that she had been permitted to go on through all her trials unable to rejoice or even be conscious of God's presence, nor able to cast all her burdens on Him.

She was driven however to seek God by great need. Her husband's death left her destitute, with little children to provide for, and few friends from whom to look for continuous aid.

Winter drew on, and, one day, her little boy came in shivering with cold and asked if he could not have a fur cap, as his straw hat was very cold and none of the boys at school wore straw hats. She was without a cent in the world. She gave a hopeful answer to the boy and sent him out to play. Then she went to her bedroom and knelt and wept in utter desolation of heart before God. She prayed most earnestly that God would give her a sign that He was her God and was caring for her by sending her a cap for her boy.

While she prayed the peace of God filled her soul. She was made to feel the presence of her Saviour in such a way that all doubts as to His love for her and His fulfillment of all His promises to care for her vanished away. She came out of her room, rejoicing in the Lord and singing His praise. She had lost the burden about the cap, and was quite content for God to send it or not as it pleased Him.

That afternoon, when a neighbor came to visit, still occupied with the Lord and His wonderful love, the thought of the cap had gone from her mind. When the neighbor rose to leave, she said, "You know my little boy died last fall. Just before he died I bought him a fur cap: he only wore it two or three times. After his death I put away all his things and thought I could never part with any of them. But, this morning, as I went to the drawer to look them over, I felt that I should give you this cap for your little boy. Will you take it for me?"

As she took the cap and told her neighbor about the morning trial, prayer and blessing, two souls were filled with the sense of the reality of prayer and the love of God for His children.

"My little boy," said the widow to me "wore that cap for three winters. And often, when sorely tried by my circumstances, has God lifted the burden from my heart, by my just looking at it, and remembering the blessing that came with it."

Experiences like this God gives to all His children, not for the purpose of leading them to look to Him for supplying their physical necessities, as an end, but to make Himself known to them, and to secure their confidence and love, for "…this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3 NKJV)