The Winner in the Devotional Category Is...

Although I have yet to decide on a book to teach for the Women’s Study groups here at Exeter Presbyterian, I have chosen a new favorite devotional work. (See “Summertime Reading, July 21st blogpost.) It came recommended to me by a very good friend who has similar reading tastes to mine. It is entitled Voices From The Past: Puritan Devotional Readings, edited by Richard Rushing.

The daily excerpts from the writings of authors such as John Owen, Richard Baxter, Jeremiah Burroughs, and John Flavel, are on various topics. Each one is a gem - really. The preface states that most of these selections are word for word copies from the original. “In many places the old language has been retained when to modernize it would have blunted the sharp cutting edge of the original.” Because of this attempt to present the material as close to the primary documents, reading must be done slowly. The reader will be richly rewarded for the effort.

Here is just one sample of the loveliness of these writings:

“Nothing comes to pass without our heavenly Father’s permission or ordination. By this almighty providence, God overrules and sways all things to his own glory. There is nothing that comes to pass but God has his purpose in it. Though the world seems to run at random in blind confusion and rude disorder, yet God governs it to make perfect harmony out of all the seeming discords. Question: ‘If God’s providence ordains all things that come to pass according to the immutable law of his purpose, then what necessity is there for prayer? We cannot by our most fervent prayers alter God’s decrees. Our prayers cannot hasten or ripen his blessings before their time, or prevent or prolong the time fixed to bring afflictions to pass upon us.’ Divine providence does not only ordain what effects shall come to pass, but also by what means, what causes, and in what order they shall flow. God has appointed not only the effect itself, but the means to accomplish it. Prayer is a means to bring to pass that which God has determined should be. We do not pray out of hope to alter God’s eternal purposes; but we pray to obtain that which God has ordained to be received by our prayers. We ask, that we may be fit to receive what God has from all eternity determined to give by prayer, and not otherwise. Therefore, when we lie under any affliction, or if we are pinched by poverty, prayer is necessary because, as God by his providence has brought these things upon us, so likewise possibly the same providence has also determined not to remove them until we earnestly and fervently pray for our deliverance. Prayer does not incline God to bestow that which before he was not resolved to give, but prepares us to receive that which God will not give otherwise.”

WHEW. There is so much in there worth considering! My favorite is this: the idea that God appoints not only the specific answers to our prayers, but the very act of praying itself:  “...the same providence has also determined not to remove them (our afflictions) until we earnestly and fervently pray for our deliverance.”

This is the kind of encouragement that we need to continue in prayer. It is not that we are going to change the will of God, but that God has willed that we should pray, and that our praying is part of His unstoppable plan to bless us and others.