Your earnest cry, though you now keep it unspoken before men, is not unspoken before God, for He knows what you ask even before you utter it, and He hears prayer offered in the name of Jesus Christ alone, through whom alone salvation is found and access is given.
You have felt the sting of mockers, and this is no strange thing to faith. Whatever happens to us, if our faith is the work of the Holy Spirit, we shall hold on to our trust in God. Sometimes they scoff at faith itself, counting it folly of weak minds, and sometimes they insult over one particular Christian's faith, saying, he professes to trust in God after this mad fashion. They scoff at the very idea of Divine interposition, as though God would not hear or answer. No doubt we may expect all the more of the laughter of the ungodly who will make a spectacle of us for our faith, but what of that. We can bear mockery and much more for His sake who died for us. Take therefore above all the shield of faith, for faith preserves from all sorts of enemies. Does it refer to wicked men, faith resists them. Does it refer to Satan with his fiery darts, faith answers him. Let the earth be all in arms abroad, this faith can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, for this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.
You say, I must believe my prayer has already been answered, and I hear in that the trembling of little faith which yet betakes itself to prayer. When Peter began to sink, what did he do, he prayed, Lord, save me. Little faith knows where her strength lies, and is great at pleading in prayer. Perhaps your very weakness drives you more often to your knees. Be comforted, for the Holy Spirit is the Creator not of the littleness of our faith, but of our faith, be it ever so little. Our Lord acknowledges the faith which we suspect to be little better than unbelief. He can spy out faith when, like a lone spark, it is all but smothered under a heap of rubbish, and He forgives the unbelief, but He graciously accepts the faith despite its weakness. What is faith, it is not only to know that Christ is there and to believe that He is strong, but the essence of faith lies in dropping down into His arms. That is the proof and pith of it.
Yet learn also humility in prayer. True prayer is pleading with the Most High, spreading our case before Him, and pressing our suit with all the arguments we can muster from His own Word. We say, Remember the Word unto Your servant, asking God to remember His Word by fulfilling it, for prayer is a reminding of our heavenly Father of His promises. But self conceit tears the chariot wheels from prayer so that it drags heavily. Imitate then humility of spirit, and let your prayer be highly argumentative with promises, not with demands that God must do as we dictate. A faith that can believe over a hungry belly is faith indeed, yet it is only such a faith as is due to God, and God will abundantly justify all the trust we repose in Him.
You have done well to commit the matter silently to God. Intercessory prayer is the sweetest prayer God ever hears, for in all the incense which our Great High Priest now puts into the censer there is not a single grain that is for Himself, and intercessory prayer is exceedingly prevalent. When you can plead a promise and drop that prayer into the ground with hope, your weakness shall not make it miscarry, it shall still prevail with God and bring down blessings from on high. If that prayer should be long before it gets an answer, let us persevere in importunity, saying, yet my prayer shall be in their calamities. Know this also, that Jacob prayed and his prayer was answered, but it was not answered in the way he expected it would be. So the Lord may answer you according to His wisdom and love, which is better than our expectation.
Therefore I will pray for you in Jesus name only, as you have asked, that the Lord would show you His mercy, quicken you in His way, turn away your eyes from beholding vanity, and work in you both faith and repentance, for they are twins born together in the soul, and faith means trust in Christ. Those who have a faith which allows them to think lightly of past sin have the faith of devils and not the faith of Gods elect. May He give you that true faith by which men are saved, and without which men are damned, and may He conform your desires and your petitions to His holy Word, for marriage is His institution, a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and all our living is to be ordered within His good design. What is according to His will He will grant, and where we ask amiss He will give what is better, even Himself.
Tell the tempter, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and rest your unspoken burden there. The Lord can deny nothing to the pleadings of an unstaggering faith that rests upon Christ, and even your little faith, cast upon Him, He will not despise.
