We notice too the kind of prayer which love naturally presents. It is constant and earnest--"always striving," or as the word might be rendered, "agonizing." That word suggests first the familiar metaphor of the wrestling-ground. True prayer is the intensest energy of the spirit pleading for blessing with a great striving of faithful desire. But a more solemn memory gathers round the word, for it can scarcely fail to recall the hour beneath the olives of Gethsemane, when the clear paschal moon shone down on the suppliant who, "being in an agony, prayed the more earnestly." And both Paul's word here, and the evangelist's there, carry us back to that mysterious scene by the brook Jabbok, where Jacob "wrestled" with "a man" until the breaking of the day, and prevailed. Such is prayer; the wrestle in the arena, the agony in Gethsemane, the solitary grapple with the "traveller unknown"; and such is the highest expression of Christian love. Here, too, we learn what love asks for its beloved. Not perishable blessings, not the prizes of earth--fame, fortune, friends; but that "ye may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God." The first petition is for stedfastness. To stand has for opposites--to fall, or totter, or give ground; so the prayer is that they may not yield to temptation, or opposition, nor waver in their fixed faith, nor go down in the struggle; but keep erect, their feet planted on the rock, and holding their own against every foe. The prayer is also for their maturity of Christian character, that they may stand firm, because perfect, having attained that condition which Paul in this Epistle tell us is the aim of all preaching and warning. As for ourselves, so for our dear ones, we are to be content with nothing short of entire conformity to the will of God. His merciful purpose for us all is to be the goal of our efforts for ourselves, and of our prayers for others. We are to widen our desires to coincide with His gift, and our prayers are to cover no narrower space than His promises enclose. Epaphras' last desire for his friends, according to the true reading, is that they may be "fully assured" in all the will of God. There can be no higher blessing than that--to be quite sure of what God desires me to know and do and be--if the assurance comes from the clear light of His illumination, and not from hasty self-confidence in my own penetration. To be free from the misery of intellectual doubts and practical uncertainties, to walk in the sunshine--is the purest joy. And it is granted in needful measure to all who have silenced their own wills, that they may hear what God says,--"If any man wills to do His will, he shall know."