|
|
|
|
Sometimes I
think that just not thinking
of
oneself is a form of prayer. . .
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison |
|
|
prayer
- prayer
3 - prayer 4
|
| |
Prayer is the
only real action in the full sense of the word, because
prayer is the only thing
that changes one's character. A
change in character, or a change in soul, is a real
change.
When that kind of change takes place, you become
a different person and, therefore,
for the rest of your
life you act in a different way from the way in which you
have previously acted,
and in which you would have
continued to act had you not prayed. In other words,
you
become a different person. The amount of difference may be
only very slight for each time that you pray:
nevertheless it is there, for you cannot pray without
making yourself different in some degree.
Emmet
Fox |
| |
|
I
have not the courage
to search through books
for
beautiful prayers. . .
Unable either to say them
all or
choose between
them, I do
as a child
would do who cannot
read--I say just what I
want to say to God,
quite simply,
and he
never fails to understand.
St.
Therese of Lisieux
|
|
|
| |
|
Prayer is
essentially about making the heart strong
so that fear
cannot penetrate there.
Matthew Fox |
| |
|
|
| |
|
Mental prayer is
nothing else. . .
but being on terms of friendship with
God,
frequently conversing in secret with Him.
Santa Teresa de Avila |
| |
Prayer
is the most powerful form of energy one can generate. The
influence of prayer
on the human mind and body is as
demonstrable as that of the secreting glands.
Prayer is a
force as real as terrestrial gravity. It supplies us
with
a flow of sustaining power in our daily lives.
Alexis Carrel |
| |
Trouble and perplexity drive me to
prayer,
and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble.
Philip Melanchthon
|
|
| |
| Robert J.
McCracken
Prayer
is love raised to its greatest power, and the prayer of
intercession
is the noblest and most Christian kind of
prayer because in it love--
and imagination--reach their
highest and widest range. |
| |
|
|
| |
|
Prayer for worldly
goods is worse than fruitless, but prayer for strength of
soul
is that passion of the soul which catches the gift
it seeks.
George
Meredith |
| |
|
|
| |
|
I do
not pray for a lighter load,
but for a stronger back.
Phillips Brooks |
| |
|
Prayer is
not conquering God's reluctance,
but taking hold of God's
willingness.
Phillips
Brooks |
God is
not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can
press a button to
get things done.
Harry Emerson Fosdick |
|
| |
|
Prayer is
the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near.
James Montgomery |
| |
|
I asked God for
strength, that I might achieve
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey. . .
I asked for health, that I might do greater things
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things. . .
I asked for riches, that I might be happy
I was given poverty, that I might be wise. . .
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
. .
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life
I was given life that I might enjoy all things. . .
I got nothing that I asked for--but everything I had
hoped for
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all people, most richly blessed.
Anonymous |
|
| |
One
of my biggest problems with prayer has always been in the
lack of response. Through loneliness and depression and
discouragement, I would pray over and over for a certain
something--and never anything like getting rich or
wishing harm to others--but I would see no results. I
felt trapped in a Catch-22: if I prayed without faith,
nothing would work, but if nothing worked, I couldn't
build my faith.
But I've come to realize that I was
asking too much from God--I wanted Him to intercede in my
life, to reach down and make things right. I wasn't
asking Him to work with me, to point me in the right
direction and let me do what I needed to do. My prayers
were saying "Help! I can't do this;" not "I
know I can do this, but I need guidance and support."
I've
found that the strength in prayer is not what it ends up
doing for me, but what it makes me when I go through the
process, when I focus on God and life and the beautiful
possibilities of this world. I no longer pray that God
will do things for me; instead, I pray that God will help
me to have the strength to accomplish what I need to
accomplish.
And all
those prayers that weren't answered? Well, as Garth
Brooks sings in the song he co-wrote with Pat Alger and
Larry B. Bastian: "Sometimes I thank God for
unanswered prayers / Remember when you're talkin' to the
man upstairs / That just because he doesn't answer doesn't
mean that He don't care / Some of God's greatest gifts
are unanswered prayers."
tdw
|
|
| |
|
HOME - contents
- Full Life Online
abundance - acceptance
- achievement
- action
- adversity
- aging - anticipation
- appreciation - attitude
- authenticity
awareness
- balance - beauty
- being yourself - beliefs
- body - character
- children
- Christianity
- coincidence
commitment - common
sense - community - compassion
- compliments - compromise
- confidence - conscience
contentment
- courage - creativity
-
death
- determination
- earth - ego - encouragement
- enthusiasm - eternity
faith
- family
- flowers - forgiveness
- freedom - friendship
- fun - gardening - gentleness
- giving
- God - goodness
grace - gratitude
-growing up - happiness
- healing - helpfulness
- home - hope
- humility - imagination
integrity - joy
- kindness - laughter
- learning - letting
go - life
- listening - love
- marriage - miracles
- mystery
nature
- now - open-mindedness
- opportunity
- optimism - patience
- peace - perseverance
- perspective
play - prayer - principle
- purpose - religion
- rest - role models
- sadness
- self - self-respect
- serving others - silence
simplicity - spirit - success
- time - today
- truth - values - war
- wisdom
- wonder - work
- worship
spring - summer
- fall - winter - Christmas
- Thanksgiving - New
Year - zen sayings
obstacles to living
life fully - e-zine archives
- quotations
contents |
| |
I got up
early one morning
And rushed right into the day;
I had so much to accomplish
That I didn't have time to pray.
Problems just tumbled about me,
And heavier came each task;
"Why doesn't God help me?" I wondered.
He answered, "You didn't ask."
I wanted to see joy and beauty,
But the day toiled on gray and bleak;
I wondered why God didn't show me.
He said, "But you didn't seek."
I tried to come into God's presence;
I used all my keys in the lock.
God gently and lovingly chided,
"My child, you didn't knock."
I woke up early this morning,
And paused before entering the day;
I had so much to accomplish
That I had to take time to pray.
Author unknown
|
|
| |
Never
was a faithful prayer lost. Some prayers have
a longer
voyage than others, but then they return
with their
richer lading at last, so that the praying soul
is a
gainer by waiting for an answer.
William Gurnall |
| |
|
When we pray "in the
name of Jesus" the answers are in accordance
with His nature, and if we think our prayers are
unanswered
it is because we are not interpreting
the answer along this line. |
Oswald
Chambers |
|
| |
|
Prayer covers the whole of our life. There is no thought, feeling, yearning,
or desire,
however low, trifling, or vulgar we may deem it,
which if
it affects our real interest or happiness, we may not lay
before God
and be sure of sympathy. His nature is such
that our often coming
does not tire him. The whole burden
of the whole life of humans
may be rolled on to God and not
weary him, though it has wearied us.
Henry Ward Beecher |
| |
Pray
a little each day in a childlike way for the Spirit of
prayer.
If you feel that you know, as yet, very little
concerning the deep things of prayer
and what prayer
really is, then pray for the Spirit of prayer.
There is
nothing He would rather do than unveil to you the grace
of prayer.
O. Hallesby |
| |
|
|
| |
|
Let us thank God heartily as often as we
pray that we have His Spirit in us to teach us to pray.
Thanksgiving will draw our hearts out to God and keep us
engaged with Him;
it will take our attention from
ourselves and give the Spirit room in our hearts.
Andrew Murray |
| |
|
Our thanks to God should always
precede our requests.
Anon |
| |
|
| |
I
never went to bed in my life and I never ate a meal in my life
without saying a prayer. I know my prayers have been answered
thousands of times,
and I know that I never said a prayer in my life without something
good coming of it.
Jack Dempsey
|
| |
|
A
grandfather was walking through his yard when he heard his
granddaughter
repeating the alphabet in a tone of voice that sounded like a prayer.
He asked her what she was doing. The little girl explained:
"I'm praying, but I can't think of exactly the right words,
so I'm just saying all the letters, and God will put them together for
me,
because He knows what I'm thinking."
Charles
B. Vaughan |
| |
|
|
| |
|
If
you begin to live life looking for the God that is all around
you,
every moment becomes a prayer.
Frank
Bianco |
|
| |
You pray in
your distress and in your need;
would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy
and in your days of abundance.
Khalil Gibran |
| |
|
|
| |
|
I
would love to have a more earnest prayer life! In my life, prayer is
the single most difficult discipline.
I love God and there’s something
in me that would rather do things for God than talk to God.
I’m not by nature
a mystical, devotional person.
I like to do things.
And so it’s a challenge
for me to have a faithful prayer life, but I know God loves me
and He’s not mad at me.
He just wishes I would slow down
and turn things over to Him.
And that’s what I think
you achieve through prayer.
Max Lucado |
| |
|
My
prayers seem to be more of an attitude than anything else.
I indulge
in very little lip service, but ask the Great Creator silently, daily,
and often
many times a day, to permit me to speak to Him through the three great
Kingdoms
of the world which He has created – the animal, mineral, and
vegetable Kingdoms –
to understand their relations to each other, and our relations
to them and
to the Great God who made all of us. I ask Him daily and often
momently
to give me wisdom, understanding, and bodily strength to do His will;
hence I am asking and receiving all the time.
George
Washington Carver |
| |
|
|
| |
|
It’s a risky thing to pray and the danger is
that our very prayers get between
God and us. The great
thing in prayer is not to pray, but to go directly
to God. . . . The fact is, though, that if you descend into the depths
of your
own spirit and arrive somewhere near the center of what you are, you
are confronted
with the inescapable truth that, at the very root of your existence,
you are
in constant and immediate contact with the infinite power of God.
Thomas Merton |
| |
|
Wants
and needs are closely connected.
And all our needs, even the ones
we’re not completely aware of yet, will be met.
Be grateful that God knows
more about what we need than we do.
Sometimes when we pray, we get
what we want.
Sometimes we get what we need.
Accept both answers—the
yes’s and the something else’s—with heartfelt gratitude.
Then look around
and see what your lesson and gift is.
Melody
Beattie |
| |
|
