The fifth word is this fourth word a degree finer spun, a stage farther on, and higher up, the word husband.  This is the word on the man side for the most hallowed relationship of earth.  This is the lover relationship in its perfection stage.  With men husband is not always a finer word than lover.  The more’s the pity.  How man does cheapen God’s plan of things; leaves out the kernel, and keeps only an empty shell sometimes.  In God’s thought a husband is a lover plus.  He is all that the finest lover is, and more; more tender, more eager, more thoughtful.  Two lives are joined, and begin living one life.  Two wills, yet one.  Two persons, yet one purpose.  Duality in unity.  Will you call to mind for a moment the best husband you ever knew any woman to have.  Then remember this that God is a husband; only He is an infinitely more thoughtful husband than any you ever knew.  And His will for your life is a husband’s will for his life’s friend and companion.

Now, please, do not you take one of these words, and say, “I like that”; and you another and say, “That conception of God appeals to me,” and you another.  How we do whittle God down to our narrow conceptions!  You must take all five words, and think the finest meaning into each, and then put them all together, to get a close up idea of God.  He is all that, and more.

You see God is so much that it takes a number of earth’s relationships put together to get a good suggestion of what He is.  He is a father, a mother, a friend, a lover, a husband.  I have not brought book, and chapter, and verse.  But you know I could spend a long time with you reading over the numerous passages giving these conceptions of God.

And God’s will for us is the plan of such a God as that.  It includes the body, health and strength; the family and home matters; money and business matters; friendships, including the choice of life’s chief friend; it includes service, what service and where; and constant guidance; it includes the whole life, and the world of lives.  All this He has thought into, lovingly, carefully.  Does a wise mother think of her child’s needs into the details, the necessities and the loving extras?  That is God.

The One Purpose of Prayer.

Now, the whole thought in prayer is to get the will of a God like that done in our lives and upon this old earth.  The greatest prayer any one can offer is, “Thy will be done.”  It will be offered in a thousand different forms, with a thousand details, as needs arise daily.  But every true prayer comes under those four words.  There is not a good desirable thing that you have thought of that He has not thought of first, and probably with an added touch not in your thought.  Not to grit your teeth and lock your jaw and pray for grace to say, “Thy will be endured:  it is bitter, but I must be resigned; that is a Christian grace; Thy will be endured.”  Not