Unspoken Sermons · Chapter
Man’s Difficulty Concerning Prayer explained
This chapter explores the profound difficulty and mystery of intercessory prayer—praying for another person.
What happens
This chapter explores the profound difficulty and mystery of intercessory prayer—praying for another person. The author argues that such prayer is natural and necessary because God has given us love, and love seeks to help. Even when we cannot see how our prayers work, they may increase God's opportunity to act, and they unite us with the divine will. The chapter also addresses the possibility of unanswered or delayed prayer, the spiritual benefit of the prayerful attitude, and the hope that prayers extend beyond death.
Themes in this chapter
The Individual Relationship with God
The chapter emphasizes that prayer is a personal communion with the Father, where the soul rises into the will of the Eternal, and that talking with God is the end of all prayer.
Faith and Obedience
Faith is portrayed as trusting God even when prayers seem unanswered, and obedience is shown in the persistence of prayer despite difficulty.
Love of Neighbor and Enemy
Intercessory prayer is presented as an expression of love for others, where the believer seeks the good of another and works with God to help them.
Characters to notice
- Jesus Christ
Referenced as the Lord who prayed to the Father for those who love him, and as the one who taught the parable of the persistent widow.
- God the Father
Described as the perfect, loving Father who hears prayer, works with his children, and desires to lift them into sharing his divine nature.
- The Child
Used as a metaphor for the believer who comes to God with a simple, loving request for another, like a child asking a parent to help a sibling.
Key passages
“If God has made us to love like himself, and like himself long to help; if there are for whom we, like him, would give our lives to lift them from the evil gulf of their ungodliness; if the love in us would, for the very easing of the love he kindled, gift another—like himself who chooses and cherishes even the love that pains him; if, in the midst of a sore need to bless, to give, to help, we are aware of an utter impotence; and if all our hope for ourselves lies in God—what is there for us, what can we think of, what do, but go to God?”
Because God has given us a love that longs to help others, even when we feel powerless, our only natural response is to turn to God in prayer.
This captures the core argument for intercessory prayer: love compels us to seek God's help for those we care about.
“It is possible for a man, not indeed to believe in God, but to believe that there is a God, and yet not desire to enter into communion with him; but he that prays and does not faint will come to recognize that to talk with God is more than to have all prayers granted—that it is the end of all prayer, granted or refused.”
A person may intellectually acknowledge God's existence without seeking relationship, but persistent prayer leads to the realization that communion with God is itself the ultimate purpose of prayer, beyond any specific answer.
This highlights the distinction between belief in God and a living relationship with Him through prayer.
“If in God we live and move and have our being; if the very possibility of loving lies in this, that we exist in and by the live air of love, namely God himself, we must in this very fact be nearer to each other than by any bodily proximity or interchange of help; and if prayer is like a pulse that sets this atmosphere in motion, we must then by prayer come closer to each other than are the parts of our body by their complex nerve-telegraphy.”
Because we all exist within God, who is love itself, prayer connects us to others more intimately than any physical means, like a pulse moving through a shared atmosphere.
This metaphor explains how intercessory prayer unites believers with each other and with God.