Sunday Meditation: The Instinct Of Prayer

"Do not be misled, my beloved brethren.

Every good gift and every perfect free gift is from above;

it comes down from the Father of all that gives light,

in the shining of Whom there can be no variation,

rising or setting or shadow cast by His turning,

as in an eclipse.

James 1:16-17

THE INSTINCT OF PRAYER

LAWRENCE STERNE

Lawrence Sterne

November 24, 1713-March 18, 1768

Irish novelist and Anglican clergyman

"Sure never exhortation to prayer and worship can be better

enforced than this principle; that God is the cause and Creator of all things;

that each individual being is upheld in the station it was first placed, by

the same hand which first formed it; that all blessings and advantages

which are necessary to the happiness and welfare of beings on earth

are only to be derived from the same fountain and that the only way

to do it is to secure an interest in His favour, by grateful expression

of our sense for the benefits we have received, and a humble

dependence upon Him for those we expect and stand in want of.

Of all duties, prayer certainly is the sweetest and most easy.

There are some duties which may seem to occasion a troublesome

opposition to the natural workings of flesh and blood, such as the

forgiveness of injuries and the love of our enemies, but this duty

of prayer and thanksgiving to God, it requireth no strength of

parts or painful study, but just to know and have a true sense

of our dependence and of the mercies by which we are upheld.

And with this, in every place and posture of the body, a good

man may lift up his soul unto the Lord his God. For it seems to be the

least that can be done to answer the demand of our duty in this point,

successively to open and shut up the day in prayer and thanksgiving;

since there is not a morning thou risest or a night thou layest down,

but thou art indebted for it to the watchful providence of Almighty God.