This week’s hymn is “I am Thine, O Lord.” It is one I can still hear my grandfather singing and one of many favorite Fanny Crosby songs. So, let’s explore the third verse,  

O, the pure delight of a single hour 
that before Thy throne I spend, 
when I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God, 
I commune as friend with friend!  

 
There are four stanzas to the hymn, and each seems to have a different theme. However, when you come to the refrain (chorus) they are all bound together.  

Refrain: 
Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, 
to the cross where Thou hast died; 
draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, 
to Thy precious, bleeding side. 
 

They are all about being drawn closer to Christ. This particular stanza is about drawing deeper in prayer. What does prayer mean to you? How much time do you dedicate to prayer? Can you say you spend a single hour in prayer? I tend to relate more to the disciples when Jesus was in the garden, and He took the disciples with Him. He asked them to watch and pray. What did they do? They fell asleep. He came back and found them sleeping. His response? “Could you not keep watch for one hour?” (Mark 14:37) He asked the question to Simon Peter, but He might as well have asked me. I doubt I could have done much better. This account is found in Matthew 26 and Mark 14 if you need a refresher.  

Crosby calls it a “pure delight” to spend an hour in prayer. Some of us can barely manage fifteen minutes in prayer before our minds start to wander. So how can we spend an hour in prayer? I think it is a learned practice. It is something you build up to. It becomes a spiritual discipline. We begin to delight ourselves in the Lord (Psalm 37:4) and watch as His desires become our desires. At first distractions are everywhere then over time they come to a minimum as we learn to focus on Him and he becomes our heart’s desire.  

It is also important to remember that we are coming before the throne of Almighty God. We are not calling 1-800-I WANT NOW. We often need to change our attitude before we begin our prayer time. Our stanza talks about the delight of spending an hour before His throne. It is Him we are seeking. His presence. When we come with a list of Christmas wants, of course we can’t focus on much more than just those few things. He wants to spend time with us. He wants to commune with us. He wants us to want to commune with Him. Notice the last line, “as friend with friend.” You can’t say that when you meet with a friend you rush in with that friend and say something like, “I can only give fifteen minutes, so much to do, but here is what I need, by the way, I love you. You are my best friend. See you soon. Gotta run. Bye.” Before long that friend won’t want to meet with you and you can hardly call yourself friends. Friends talk and share. They listen to each other. They spend time together. They enjoy each other’s company. This is the relationship described in the hymn, “I commune as friend with friend.” 

I don’t know what your relationship with God is like. You may have a depth that others can only dream about. You may be more like the friend I just described. You may be somewhere in between. I hope wherever you are in your relationship you long to go deeper. You long for an ever-closer relationship with Him. I can say that with confidence because our God is so awesome in scope and power that just when we think we know Him He reveals another layer of His nature and character to us and we are blown away by Him and His greatness. 

I challenge you in this next week to change the way you think about your prayer life. Maybe you need to just begin to pray. So, five minutes is a challenge, and an hour is an eternity. So, start with the five minutes you do have. Maybe you are more like the friend I described earlier. Slow down and focus on Him who sits on the throne. He loves you and gave Himself for you. Leave your list and worship Him. Try something different. It is not too late to begin to draw nearer to God. In fact, He desires a relationship with you. Prayer is a conversation between you and God. He is waiting for you.  

 My prayer for all of us is that we would reach a place where our delight is a single hour in prayer talking with our God as friends.  

“Draw me nearer, nearer blessed Lord.” 

All for One 

Angela