"SALVATION IS OF THE LORD." Jonah's prayer is ours when in dire distress. The prayer of faith is generally short and to the point. It takes the soul before God in its real state and true character. It pleads with Him for what is really needed, what must be had. The believer needs deliverance and in faith he cries to God for it. His language is, "O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul from doubts and fears, which continually beset me; from a spirit of bondage, which daily binds me; deliver me from Satan who worries, harasses, and hinders me; deliver me from the sin which so easily besets me; deliver me from men who would injure or mislead me; from my own feelings which daily trouble me." Thus the Lord is acknowledged as the great deliverer; our own inability is openly confessed; in Christ our Lord, our trials and troubles are sanctified; the legitimate tendency of grace is discovered by the earnestness, simplicity, importunity, and success of our prayers. Be this our daily cry until deliverance be no longer needed; for our God says, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee."

For Meditation:
O for that tenderness of heart
Which humbly bows before the Lord;
Acknowledges how just Thou art,
And trembles at Thy holy word!
Saviour, to me in mercy give
Thy Spirit's power for Thee to live.