Why the Results are Delayed



God's Pathway to Human Hearts.


God touches men through men. The Spirit's path to a human heart is through
another human heart. With reverence be it said, yet with blunt plainness
that in His plan for winning men to their true allegiance God is limited
by the human limitations. That may seem to mean more than it really does.
For our thought of the human is of the scarred, warped, shrivelled
humanity that we know, and great changes come when God's Spirit controls.
But the fact is there, however limited our understanding of it.

God needs man for His plan. That is the fact that stands out strong in
thinking about prayer. God's greatest agency; man's greatest agency, for
defeating the enemy and winning men back is intercession. God is counting
mightily upon that. And He can count most mightily upon the man that
faithfully practices that.

The results He longs for are being held back, and made smaller because so
many of us have not learned how to pray simply and skilfully. We need
training. And God understands that. He Himself will train. But we must be
willing; actively willing. And just there the great bother comes in. A
strong will perfectly yielded to God's will, or perfectly willing to be
yielded, is His mightiest ally in redeeming the world.

Answers to prayer are delayed, or denied, out of kindness, _or_, that more
may be given, _or_, that a far larger purpose may be served. But deeper