the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you.
Blessed are all they that wait for Him. He will be very gracious
unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when He shall hear it, He will
answer thee."--ISA. xxx. 18, 19.

"The Lord will hear when _I call_ upon Him."--PS. iv. 3.

"I have called upon Thee, for Thou _wilt hear me_, O God!"--PS.
xvii. 6.

"I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation:
my God _will hear me_."--MIC. vii. 7.

The power of prayer rests in the faith that God hears it. In more than
one sense this is true. It is this faith that gives a man courage to
pray. It is this faith that gives him power to prevail with God. The
moment I am assured that God hears _me_ too, I feel drawn to pray and to
persevere in prayer. I feel strong to claim and to take in faith the
answer God gives. One great reason of lack of prayer is the want of the
living, joyous assurance: "My God will hear me." If once God's servants
got a vision of the living God waiting to grant their request, and to
bestow all the heavenly gifts of the Spirit they are in need of, for
themselves or those they are serving, how everything would be set aside
to make time and room for this one only power that can ensure heavenly
blessing--the prayer of faith!

When a man can, and does say, in living faith, "My God will hear me!"
surely nothing can keep him from prayer. He knows that what he cannot do
or get done on earth, can and will be done for him from heaven. Let each
one of us bow in stillness before God, and wait on Him to reveal Himself
as the prayer-hearing God. In His presence the wondrous thoughts
gathering round the central truth will unfold themselves to us.

1. "_My God will hear me._"--_What a blessed certainty!_--We have God's
word for it in numberless promises. We have thousands of witnesses to
the fact that they have found it true. We have had experience of it in
our lives. We have had the Son of God come from heaven with the message
that if we ask, the Father will give. We have had Himself praying on
earth, and being heard. And we have Him in heaven now, sitting at the
right hand of God and making intercession for us. God hears prayer--God
delights to hear prayer. He has allowed His people a thousand times over
to be tried, that they might be compelled to cry to Him, and learn to
know Him as the Hearer of Prayer.

Let us confess with shame how little we have believed this wondro