When prayer precedes trial

“And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and four hundred men with him” (Genesis 33:1)

When prayer has preceded trial, the trial turns out to be much less than we anticipated.

• When they reached the sepulchre, the women found that the dreaded stone had been rolled away.
• When Peter reached the outer gate, that threatened to be an insurmountable obstacle to liberty, it opened to him of its own accord.

So Jacob dreaded that meeting with Esau; but when Esau came up with him, he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept.

The heroic Gordon used to say that, in his lonely camel rides, he often in prayer encountered and disarmed hostile chiefs, before he rode, unaccompanied, into their presence. None can guess, if they have not tried it for themselves, what a solvent prayer is for the difficulties and agonies of life.

It is very beautiful to see that, in this, God was better to Jacob than his fears, or his faith. Whilst he was foreboding the worst, his heavenly Friend was preparing deliverance; as, years after, the Lord stretched out His hand and saved from the yeasty waves the faithless Apostle, who had looked away from Himself to the terrors of the storm.

F.B.M.