«　WEEK 3　DAY 4　»

　　Eph. 1:9 Making known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself.

　　1 John 5:14-15 And this is the boldness which we have to ward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.

　　If God will send laborers by Himself, the Lord would not have told us to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers [Matt. 9:38]! If His name will automatically be sanctified, if His kingdom will come without our cooperation, and if He will cause His will to be carried out on earth by Himself, He would not have taught us to pray this way [6:9-10]. If He will come again without the need for the sympathy of the church, His Spirit would not have inspired the apostle to ask Him to come quickly again. If God the Father will automatically cause His believers to be one, there would not have been the need for the Lord to pray such a prayer…. Praying in sympathy with God is more important than doing anything else. He can only work on matters in which His children sympathize with Him. He is not willing to work where there has been no prayer, where He does not have His people’s will in union with Him. This union of the wills is real prayer. Obtaining an answer to prayer is not the highest goal of prayer. The purpose of prayer is that we be one with God’s will so that God can work. When our will is one with God, even though we may at times ask amiss and our prayer is not answered, God still receives the benefit because He is able to work as a result of our sympathy with Him. (CWWN, vol. 8, p. 13)

　　God works according to certain laws and principles. Although He can act as He pleases, He does not act recklessly; He acts according to His preordained laws and principles. God is above all laws and principles; He is God, and He can act as He pleases. Yet we see a wonderful thing in the Bible. Although He is so great and can act as He pleases, He acts according to laws, and it seems as if He has voluntarily placed Himself under law and is willing to be governed by law. What are the principles of God’s work? One main principle of God’s work is the need for man’s prayer. He wants man to cooperate with Him in prayer.

　　There was once a Christian who was very experienced in prayer. He said that all spiritual work consists of four steps. In the first step, God intends to do something; there is God’s will. In the second step, He reveals this will to His children through the Spirit so that they know His will, His plan, His desire, and His aspiration. In the third step, God’s children return His will back to Him through prayer. Prayer is the echoing of God’s will. If our heart is in tune with God’s heart, spontaneously we will speak forth God’s will. As a result God will accomplish His work in the fourth step.

　　We will not look at the first and second steps now. We will pay attention to the third step, which is returning God’s will back to God. Please pay attention to the word return. All worthwhile prayers are a kind of returning. If our prayer is only for the fulfillment of our plans and wishes, it will not have any value in the spiritual realm. Only the prayers that are initiated by God and that echo what He has initiated have any worth. God’s work is governed by prayers. God is willing to do many things, but He will not do them when His people do not pray. He must wait for man to agree with Him before He will do them. This is a great principle of God’s work, and it is also one of the most crucial principles in the Bible. (CWWN, vol. 38, pp. 281-282)

　　Further Reading: CWWN, vol. 44, ch. 87