FRAGMENT

…"Let your requests Be made known unto God.  And the peace of God .. .  shall keep your hearts and minds," &c. Phil 4: 7 KJV.  People often pray about what is pressing on the heart, without getting satisfied and at rest as to it; but when it is so, the fault is in oneself and not in the Lord, and the reason is that one has not simply made it known unto Him.  You may ask me how you should make it known?  I reply, Any way, but make it known you must, in order to have peace of heart as to it.  You might make it known without leaving your chair, or you might be for days before you had the consciousness that you had made it known.  A petitioner might be at court several days and yet he might not have got an audience from her Majesty, and until he had the audience he could not make known the substance of his petition.   The thing that delays one's peace of heart is that I have not had an audience, that is, I have not the consciousness that I have made known my request.  But if I have made it known, I rest, because I know that He knows it.  It is not because He is omniscient, but because I have told it to Him.  The simple question is, Have you told it to Him?  You might be praying for hours, without the consciousness of having really committed it to Him; as a man might be at court for days without seeing the Queen.  It depends on the reality of my speaking to Him.  In 1 John 5: 14, 15, it depends on Him, on His hearing me, but here (Phil 4), in matters of request, and in order to have the peace of God in the heart as to what presses on it, the great point is that I make it known unto Him.

From A Voice to the Faithful vol VIII – Published by J.B.Stoney