In this marvellous doxology the apostle seems to have come to the limits of human speech, though not of thought or conception. Here the two seem to be on the point of parting company. The speech remains below, while the thought goes forth on its glorious way.
He had a wonderful glimpse of what God would do in answer to prayer. For notice--the power of God without is always commensurate with his power that works within. It is the same Greek word in each case. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above our prayer or thought, according to the power that worketh in us. As I write these words, I am passing up the great Hardanger Fiord; before me rise the mighty mountains, sheer from the edge of the still green water to the snows which cool the air; the steep slopes, seamed with water-courses and covered with firs; the rock, standing forth in its naked grandeur or covered with patches of fresh green grass. But lofty and overwhelming as the mountains are, it is probable that the depth below us is equal to the height above us. So the power of God that waits to answer prayer in yonder heights, is equivalent to the power of God the Holy Ghost, who makes intercession within us with groanings that cannot be uttered.
Conceive of all that the saints have asked. Think what John Knox asked for Scotland; Luther for Germany; Brainerd and Schwartz for the heathen. Compute the agony of supplication that has been made by parents for their children; by lovers for their beloved; by patriots for their fatherland. But the God who taught them to pray was able to do exceeding abundantly above all.
Conceive of all that the saints have thought. Imagine the unspoken prayers of the saints. Things that could not be uttered because speech failed; thoughts that have flashed to and fro between the Father and his children, like love glances between those who can read each other's heart through the eyes. But God who inspired them, was able to do exceeding abundantly above all.
ABOVE ALL.--He is not scanty in his gifts, eking out their measure by stretching them, just coming up to the brink of our emptiness, just topping the Himalayas of our sin. Where sin abounds his grace much more abounds. He not only feeds our hunger, but gives us twelve baskets full of fragments over and above.
ABUNDANTLY ABOVE ALL.--We think of the profusion of spring flowers with which He carpets the glades; of the star-dust, collected in wreaths of light on the midnight sky; of the wealth of his creative fancy in every corner of the world around us. Ah, how prolific his thought, how rich his imagination, how fertile his power! Such is our Father in nature. Think, then, O child of his, what He will not be to thee, whom He loves as He loves his Son! Ask great things of Him for his work and his world; and believe that He will far exceed thy furthest reach of desire. Thy least word will stir and bring down a blessing, mighty as an avalanche, but as soft as summer rain.
EXCEEDING ABUNDANTLY.--We will stay here. The words cease to mean more than we have already learned. Our faculties are too immature and limited to understand their depth of meaning. Only let us yield our hearts more to the power that waits to strive and yearn within them, that the depth within may cry to the depth above.