A stab in the dark from the Evil One, is it not? This whisper that your prayer is mocked, that you must now bury it in silence, do not mistake the hiss of the serpent for the voice of wisdom. If the enemy has sent his jackals to howl at your request, it is because that prayer threatens his kingdom. I see in your trial the very pattern Jacob knew at Jabbok, when he was left alone, and a man wrestled with him. The blessing came not by running from the conflict, but by clinging through it, even when the sinew shrank. So with you. You say the prayer must be unspoken now, but what is prayer, after all, if not the heart’s cry when lips cannot frame a syllable? God knows the unutterable groanings. Yet do not let your silence spring from fear of man’s scorn; let it be the deep inward breathing of a soul that will not let go of the Mercy Seat until the answer breaks like dawn.
You sense the malice, and you are right to discern it. But oh, consider this, did not the scoffers at the Cross cry, “If He be the Son of God, let Him come down”? Their seeing was not believing, but hatred. And yet the silence of those three hours spoke louder than any thunderclap. Every mercy in your life, every great deliverance, has been heralded by prayer, and often by prayer that seemed to hang unanswered in the air until the last possible moment. A soul has cried, “Lord, save me from the lion’s mouth!” and the jaw was broken but a minute before it would have crushed the bone. Five minutes later, David would have perished. The delay is not denial; it is the divine choreography of grace, teaching you to trust where you cannot trace.
But let me press this home: you began with, “Please Jesus, have mercy! I must believe my prayer has already been answered.” That is the raw, honest cry of a sinner who knows his danger, just such a one as once cried from the depths in the fifty-first psalm, “Blot out my transgressions.” And what was the foundation of that boldness? The covenant! “O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac.” You plead in Jesus’ Name only, that is your covenant ground. Then stand on it, and do not waver. If your prayer is born of the Spirit, traced back to the heart of God through His Word, then it is not a fancy of your own brain to be plucked out like a weed. It is a seed sown by the heavenly Husbandman. Do not dig it up each time a passerby sneers. Let the vermin scurry; the seed will yet break soil.
Yes, there is an inscrutable wisdom in God’s seasons. If you ask, “Why does He not answer now?” I cannot tell you, that lies in the sovereign purposes which no tongue can declare. But this I know: prayer, mighty prayer, will yet prevail if it has but time. The Preacher said, “Prayer is the prelude of mercy.” Throughout sacred history, no great blessing ever descended unheralded by such groaning. Therefore, consider the old farmer who produced the best crops while his neighbors mocked his methods. When asked his secret, he said nothing for a time, but at last revealed that he sowed his seed by throwing it into the furrow with such force that it bounced off the far side and fell into the trough. So your prayer, thrown against the unseen wall of Providence, must sometimes rebound before it rests in the prepared ground. The mockers cannot stop it.
And as for the hidden nature of your request, be of good cheer, for the Mercy Seat is open still, and the blood upon it is evidence that it is for the guilty, the needy, the devil-dragged sinner torn by brambles. You feel unworthy to pray? That is the very condition for which the Throne of Grace was erected! Peter’s first instinct was to cry, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” A natural, almost excusable prayer. But the nobler, wiser cry is, “Come to me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” If your sin is great, then it is worthy of a great God to deal with it. Do not retreat from the Healer because your wounds are foul; rather, press nearer.
Above all, let your prayer now become not a retreat into silence born of wounded pride, but a secret wrestling that refuses to let go. The family closets, the gathered two or three, the solitary place, there let the cry ascend. When the prophet’s servant saw no cloud, the prophet yet heard the sound of abundance of rain and bowed his head in prayer, not once but seven times. So with you. The answer may already be on its way, moving towards you from the very moment you began your supplication, even as it did for Daniel. Does not the promise stand sure? “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” Lay hold of that! Do not judge by sight, which is often not believing at all, but by the faculty of faith which sees the unseen. Believing is seeing.
Therefore, let the mockers laugh. Your business is not with them, but with the God who hears. Keep the heart steady. Prayer is the telephone by which Heaven speaks in your soul; it may seem silent for a season, but the connection holds. Open your mouth wide, and He will fill it. This is the forerunner of mercy, perhaps the very comfort you seek will steal into your spirit while you are yet on your knees, for prayer itself is a comforting exercise. And when the answer does break forth, as it will, in His time and way, which might be far better than you have asked, then will you love the Lord all the more for this very trial of your faith. That will be your song in the house of your pilgrimage. Until then, believe; and having done all, stand. Have mercy, indeed, for mercy is His name and His delight.
