The more simply we act on divine precepts and exhortations, the better, for they are the fruit of absolute divine wisdom, which knows divine perfectness and human wants, met in Christ too; but I would say a few words on the real character of prayer.
The answer to prayer seems to me the going forth in divine actions in power what has flowed forth from divine wisdom, forming desire and wants in the soul. This connects itself with love, dwelling in love, and hence connects itself with confidence which faith expresses. Hence, if it be a mere lust, or to consume it on lust, it is not answered (James 4:33Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. (James 4:3)), or is answered in chastisement is a Kibroth-hattaavah (graves of lust); if it be in the Spirit, and the prayer of faith, it is answered according to the request. Thus also it is connected with the moral state of the soul the entering, first in the nature of the thing desired, and then spiritual acquaintance with God’s will, into the thoughts of God, and what His love would have and cause us, as moved by that love, to desire. Christ, perfect in this, could say, “I knew that Thou hearest Me always,” save in atonement, where yet, in result, He was yet more gloriously heard.
We are often mixed in our thoughts there are things that press on us as human beings down here, and we cast ourselves on love, and are sure to be met in love, though the answer may be other than we might seek; but God meets the moral intent of the prayer what His Spirit has produced though the positive request, in which wisdom failed, may not be accomplished in itself. But what moves down to us is always what has moved up to God, as wrought in us by the wisdom of God, and the confidence wrought in us by dwelling in love; hence, our prayers should flow, and do where real, from what is immediately drawn from Christ being in the heart by faith identity of interest with Him (through grace) in the secret of the Lord with us. But there may be the sense, thorough spiritual apprehension of the holy goodness of God, of need according to it, and desire of heart towards it, and yet not intelligence of the divine way of meeting the need; this is the case in Romans 8, but He who searches the heart knows the phronema [Greek: “mind-thoughts and purposes”] of the Spirit, for He intercedes for the saints according to God.
Grace comes down, and works through the circumstances, though there may be even no remedy for the circumstances, but there is a want, a desire according to God the Holy Spirit is there.
Then, too, all things work together for good to them who love Him; faith realizes God’s intention—hence, in the knowledge of His will, knows that it has the petitions and this reliance on the ear and arm of God is ever met. Grace comes down, and takes up its place in Christ, and in faith through Him, in the wants of men and saints down here, and in Christ, according to the wisdom and mind of God, producing perfect confidence in His love, and in the activity of that love; and so in Christ too, as Lord in its place, He was perfection in this down here we, according to the measure in which we enter into His mind.
But the great general principle is that what came down into our wants in wisdom goes up and is answered in power; but this coming down is in grace in Christ, so that it is immediately connected with divine love, and the confidence of faith expresses this. The great secret is to be with God. If God trusts His mind with one, and thus he is a prophet, then the action follows God does not let His words fall to the ground; and to this there is analogy or approach, when we walk wholly with God, though there be no official function, and, in the case of the prophets, what was announced authoritatively was at any rate sometimes, always in spirit habitually, prayed for, as James teaches us in Elijah for the famine, so authoritatively announced in history. And so the Lord Himself, in the case of Lazarus. But what a place this gives to prayer dependent conversing with God in grace, as admitted into His interests, though encouraged to bring every want in childlike, perfect confidence in Him, because He has taken up all our interests into His own love.
Divine wisdom, acting in the midst of this world, in love, looks for the exercise of divine power. It is not simply divine wisdom, but as Christ Himself, divine wisdom exercising itself in the midst of evil; then, as we have seen, dependence is wrought out in it, and confidence where the divine will is known with certainty of answer. Divine power at our disposal, and when not, when it is the expression of a want with submission to that will and confidence in divine love which gives peace. “If we ask anything according to His will,” and, “Let your requests be made known... and the peace of God... shall keep your hearts.”
J. N. Darby (from Notes & Comments, Vol. 1)