Prayer and Trials–Quote from Octavius Winslow

From the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help. Hear my cry, O Lord. Pay attention to my prayer. (Psalm 130:1-2)

Trial quickens us in prayer, and so effectually helps us heavenward. The life of God in the soul on earth is a life of communion of the soul with God in heaven. Prayer is nothing less than the divine nature in fellowship with the divine, the renewed creature in communion with God. And it would be as impossible for a regenerate soul to live without prayer, as for the natural life to exist without breathing. Oh, what a sacred and precious privilege is this! Is there none compared with it?

When we have closed the door–for we speak now of that most solemn and holy habit of prayer, private communion–and have shut out the world, and the creature, and even the saints, and are closeted in personal, solemn, and confiding audience with God, what words can portray the preciousness and solemnity of that hour!

Then is guilt confessed … and backslidings deplored … and care unburdened … and sorrow unveiled … and pardon sought … and grace implored … and blessings invoked.

There is no ladder … the rungs of which will bring you so near to God.
There are no wings, the plumage of which will carry you so close to heaven as prayer.

The moment you have unpinioned your soul for communion with God, let your pressure, your sorrow, your sin be what it may… that moment your heart has departed earth and is on its way heavenward.

You are soaring above the region of sorrow and battle and sin, and your spirit is expatiating beneath a purer, happier, sunnier sky. Oh the soothing, the strengthening, the uplifting found in prayer beneath the cross!

Thus trial helps us heavenward by quickening us to devotion, stirring us up to closeness of walk.

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