I am sitting with you a moment, and I see your heart in that plea. You are not merely asking for a troublesome tenant matter to settle down; you are crying to heaven for a soul. That is a royal kind of prayer, and it has the ear of the King. You want this man, your landlord, to hear the voice of the Most High and bow his whole will before the Father. That is no small request, but it is exactly the sort of petition that delights the heart of God, for He desires true submission more than we desire it for others.
Think of it this way: you are standing in the shallows, pulling on a great ship that is moored out in deep water. You tug at the rope, and it feels immovable. The vessel seems utterly indifferent to your earnestness. But what you cannot see is that the tide is rising underneath her. The great, unseen hand of the moon is lifting the whole sea, and presently that heavy keel will stir. And when she moves, she will come gliding to the shore as if drawn by a child’s hand. Your prayer is the slender rope; the tide is the secret work of the Spirit. You may feel the weight and the strain now, but the rising has already begun. He who taught you to pray for this man is the same God who knows how to make the proud heart melt like snow in a thaw.
Perhaps you are watching the outward frame of things and seeing only hardness. Do not let that discourage you. The Lord’s own method is often to let a soul thrash and resist before the great quieting comes. Have you not found it so with yourself? When He first began to deal with you, did you not argue and delay and cling to your own devices? Yet He won you, not by breaking you like an enemy, but by overcoming you with a love that would not let you perish. You surrendered in the end not because you were battered into submission, but because His gentleness made you great. The same love that conquered you can conquer this landlord. Pray him toward that blessed defeat. The surrender of a will to God is not a loss; it is the finding of everything worth having.
And while you pray, do not forget that your own quiet confidence in God is a testimony louder than you know. A soul that rests in Christ speaks even when the lips are silent. Just as a sweet fragrance is known in a room without a trumpet being sounded, so a life laid quietly into the Father’s hands tells the watching world more than a thousand arguments. The landlord may not yet be reading the Bible, but he is reading you. Let him see a tenant who carries a hidden peace, who does not fret and fume, but commends all to God. That very serenity is the black-edged envelope carrying a love-letter inside, a message that, though it comes in humility and perhaps in trial, bears the good news of a Savior.
Cry on, then. Take the promise that seems to sleep in the Book, and hold it before God’s face. Say to Him, “Lord, You have said that You give grace to the humble. You have declared that You will have mercy on whom You will have mercy. I am asking You to make this man willing in the day of Your power.” Plead the very character of God as David did, and let the truth of His salvation be your argument. He is a God who delights to call those who were not His people “My people,” and to take the unloved and call them “beloved.” That is the grand old way of heaven, and He has not changed His manner of working. The soul that now stands distant may soon be sitting at the table, clothed and in his right mind.
Now let me go with you to the mercy-seat.
Father, we bring before You a soul who is not yet bowed before the scepter of Your Son. You know his name, You know the chambers of his heart, and You know the proud imaginations that yet lift themselves up against the knowledge of Christ. O Lord, cast them down. Let a true silence come over the clamor of self-will, and in that silence let Your still, small voice be heard. Give him no rest until he rests in Jesus. And in the meantime, strengthen this dear praying one. Let not weariness overcome faith. Let hope hold the rope with a steady hand until the ship glides into harbor. We plead the name which is above every name, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.