plain principle here, that only desires which are in harmony with the
divine will are sure of being satisfied. What is a bad thing for a
child cannot be a good thing for a man. What is a foolish and wicked
thing for a father down here to do cannot be a kind and a wise thing
for the Father in the heavens to do. If you wish to spoil your child
you say, 'What do you want, my dear? tell me and you shall have it.'
And if God were saying anything like that to us, through the lips of
Jesus Christ His Son, in the text, it would be no blessing, but a
curse. He knows a great deal better what is good for us; and so He
says: 'Bring your wishes into line with My purpose, and then you will
get them'; 'Delight thyself in the Lord, and He will give thee the
desires of thine heart.' If you want God most you will be sure to get
Him; if your heart's desires are after Him, your heart's desires will
be satisfied. 'The young lions do roar and suffer hunger.' That is
the world's way of getting good; fighting and striving and snarling,
and forcibly seeking to grasp, and there is hunger after all. There
is a better way than that. Instead of striving and struggling to
snatch and to keep a perishable and questionable portion, let us wait
upon God and quiet our hearts, stilling them into the temper of
communion and conformity with Him, and we shall not ask in vain.

He who prays in Christ's name must pray Christ's prayer, 'Not My
will, but Thine be done.' And then, though many wishes may be
unanswered, and many weak petitions unfulfilled, and many desires
unsatisfied, the essential spirit of the prayer will be answered,
and, His will being done in us and on us, our wishes will acquiesce
in it and desire nothing besides. To him who can thus pray in
Christ's name in the deepest sense, and after Christ's pattern, every
door in God's treasure-house flies open, and he may take as much of
the treasure as he desires. The Master bends lovingly over such a