Life is a whole, and the pious hour of prayer is judged by God from the ordinary frame of the daily life where the hour of prayer is only a small part. Not the feeling I call up but the tone of my life during the day is God's criterion of what I really am and desire.

It is evident everywhere that Paul felt he was a member of a body - a body on which he was dependent for sympathy and cooperation. He counted on the prayers of these churches to gain for himself what otherwise might not be given. To him the prayers of the church were as real a factor in the work of the kingdom as the power of God.

We know how faith, like water, can exercise the irresistible power it has and be gathered up and accumulated, until the stream can rush in full force; likewise, there must often be a heaping up of prayer, until God sees that the measure is full, and the answer comes.

When there is little prayer that can be answered, the Father is not glorified. It is a duty for the glory of God to live and pray so that our prayer can be answered. For the sake of God's glory, let us learn to pray well.

Prayer is not monologue but dialogue; God's voice in response to mine is its most essential part.

Let us each find our what our work is and which souls are entrusted to our special prayers.

In not granting an answer, the Father tells us that there is something wrong in our praying. He wants to teach us to discover it and confess it; He wants to educate us about true believing and prevailing prayer. He will only attain His objective when He brings us to see that we are to blame for the withholding of the answer - our aim, or our faith, or our life is not what it should be.

The knowledge of the fatherhood of God, the revelation of His infinite fatherliness in our hearts, and the faith in the infinite love that gives us His Son and His Spirit to make us children is indeed the secret of prayer in spirit and truth. Christ opened this new and living way for us.

He tells you that when you go to private prayer, your first thought must be: Thy Father who is in secret; the Father waits for me there.