How Prayer Meets Our Needs in Navigating Peacemaking Challenges

At the beginning and end of each day, Jan and I pause for spiritual reflection with the help of C. H. Spurgeon’s classic devotional Morning and Evening.

Commenting on Matthew 7:7— “Ask, and it shall be given you.” —every believer’s grand privilege to pray, he writes:

We know of a place in England still existing, where a dole of bread is served to every passerby who chooses to ask for it. Whoever the traveller may be, he has but to knock at the door of St. Cross Hospital, and there is the dole of bread for him. Jesus Christ so loveth sinners that he has built a St. Cross Hospital, so that whenever a sinner is hungry, he has but to knock and have his wants supplied. Nay, he has done better; he has attached to this Hospital of the Cross a bath; and whenever a soul is . . . filthy, it has but to go there and be washed. . . . As if this were not enough, there is attached to this Hospital of the Cross a wardrobe, and a sinner making application simply as a sinner, may be clothed from head to foot; and if he wishes to be a soldier, he may not merely have a garment for ordinary wear, but armour which shall cover him from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. If he asks for a sword, he shall have that given to him, and a shield too. Nothing that is good for him shall be denied him.

Allow me to add one more “beyond” from the preceding context to Matthew 7:7.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. ² For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. ³ Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. ⁶ “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you (Matt. 7:1-6).

Please don’t miss the connection between paragraphs.

Matthew follows a classic peacemaking passage about judgments and conflicts with a classic spiritual life passage about prayers and intercession.

Do you need insight and wisdom for navigating some interpersonal conflict?

Ask, seek, and knock at St. Cross Hospital and you will receive, find, and have the door opened to you!

Question: What other provisions are promised in God’s word for meeting our needs through prayer?