The All-Absorbing Life of Prayer

In preparing to preach here at Bible Bhavan in Delhi on the subject of prayer from Luke 11, I was captured by the following from Alexander Whyte:

"Now it is necessary to know, and ever to keep in mind, that prayer is the all-comprehending name that is given to every step in our return to God. True prayer, the richest and the ripest prayer, the most acceptable and the most prevailing prayer, embraces many elements: it is made up of many operations of the mind, and many motions of the heart. To begin to come to ourselves,— however far off we may then discover ourselves to be,— to begin to think about ourselves, is already to begin to pray. To begin to feel fear, or shame, or remorse, or a desire after better things, is to begin to pray. To say within ourselves, “I will arise and go to my Father,”— that is to begin to pray. To see what we are, and to desire to turn from what we are— that also is to pray.

"In short, every such thought about ourselves, and about God, and about sin and its wages, and about salvation, its price and its preciousness; every foreboding thought about death and judgment and heaven and hell; every reflection about the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ; and every wish of our hearts that we were more like Jesus Christ: all our reading of the Word, all our meditation   reflection, contemplation, prostration and adoration; all faith, all hope, all love; all that, and all of that same kind,— it all comes, with the most perfect truth and propriety, under the all-embracing name of “prayer”; it all enters into the all-absorbing life of prayer.

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
  Uttered or unexpressed:
The motion of a hidden fire
  That trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
  The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
  When none but God is near.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
  That infant lips can try:
Prayer the sublimest strains that reach
  The Majesty on High. 

"How noble then is prayer! How incomparably noble! Who would not be a man of prayer? What wise, what sane man, will continue to neglect prayer? Ask, and it shall be given you; that your joy may be full."

Alexander Whyte, Lord Teach Us To Pray