Faithful Steward Ministries and FSM Women's Outreach

We continue our series of excerpts from “Matthew Henry on a Practical Method of Daily Prayer.” These will be without the usual comments and study references. My hope is that people will be like the Bereans, as described in Acts 17:11, and will put Henry’s writing to the test.

Directive Two: Spend Every Day with God

David wrote, “On thee do I wait all the day” (Ps. 25:5). Henry said this waiting involves “a patient expectation” of God to come in mercy at His time, and “a constant attendance” upon the Lord in the duties of personal worship. The saints need patient expectation, for they often wait through long, dark, stormy days for God to answer their prayers. But they wait in hope. Henry quoted Anglican priest and poet George Herbert (1593–1633):

  Away despair! my gracious God doth hear;
     When winds and waves assault my keel,
  He doth preserve it: he doth steer
     Ev’n when the boat seems most to reel.
  Storms are the triumph of his art,
  Well may he close his eyes, but not his heart.

The Christian’s attendance upon God throughout the day is captured in the phrase to wait upon the Lord. “To wait on God, is to live a life of desire towards him, delight in him, dependence on him, and devotedness to him,” Henry wrote.

We should spend our days desiring God, like a beggar constantly looking to his benefactor, hungering not only for His gifts but for the One who is the Bread of Life. We should live in delight of God, like a lover with his beloved. “Do we love to love God?” Henry asked. Constant dependence is the attitude of a child towards his Father whom he trusts and on whom he casts all his cares. A life of devotedness is that of a servant towards his Master, “ready to observe his will, and to do his work, and in every thing to consult his honour and interest.” It is “to make the will of his precept the rule of our practice,” and “to make the will of his providence the rule of our patience.”

Henry thus argued that to pray without ceasing is a disposition of the heart waiting upon the Lord all through the day.

We must wait on God every day, both in public worship on the Lord’s Day and in the work of our callings on weekdays. We must wait on Him in the days of prosperity when the world smiles on us and in the days of adversity when the world frowns on us. We must lean on Him in the days of youth and in the days of old age. We must wait on God all the day.

Are you burdened with cares? Cast them on the Lord. Do you have responsibilities to fulfill? In your business do you know that God assigned you this “calling and employment” and requires that you work according to the precepts of His Word? God alone can bless your efforts, and the glory of God should be the ultimate goal of all your work. Are you tempted to follow another way? Shelter yourself under His grace. Are you suffering? Submit to His will, and trust the love behind His fatherly corrections. Is your mind caught up in hopes or fears about the future? Wait on God, who rules over life and death, good and evil. Henry’s writings show us that every minute of every day contains ample reasons to look to the Lord.

We put into practice this constant attendance upon God by exercising private prayer with God repeatedly. Henry called men to secret prayer lest their prayers prove to be temptations to spiritual pride and self-display. He wrote, “Shut the door lest the wind of hypocrisy blow in at it.”

In addition, Henry calls us to family worship in which we train our household in godliness. Henry strongly advocated family devotions in Family Hymns (1694) and A Church in the House: Family Devotions (1704). He promoted such devotions, not to withdraw from the local church, but to strengthen the church by promoting godliness in the home. Henry practiced in his home what he preached. Every morning, he reviewed a portion of the previous Sunday’s sermon with his family and prayed with them. He catechized his children in the afternoon and taught the older children after the little ones went to bed. He considered family worship as a time for the whole family to come to God in prayer, seeking His blessing, thanking Him for His mercies, and bringing Him fractures in our relationships so He might heal them. Pray for your children to grow in wisdom and to “wait upon God for his grace to make the means of their education successful,” Henry said. He reminded parents that prayer begets patience, saying, “If they are but slow, and do not come on as you could wish, yet wait on God to bring them forward, and to give them his grace in his own time; and while you are patiently waiting on him, that will encourage you to take pains [make diligent efforts] with them, and will likewise make you patient and gentle towards them.”

Joel R. Beeke, “Matthew Henry on a Practical Method of Daily Prayer,” in Taking Hold of God: Reformed and Puritan Perspectives on Prayer, ed. Brian G. Najapfour (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011), 146–149.