It's a time for resolutions...and most people are hoping for change, improvements in their lives. For me, there is nothing more important than my relationship with God, and I have always looked for those farther along the way to learn from. I am not neglecting the Word of God, for certainly it is effective for changing lives, but I need more, I want more. I want to know how other humans live out their faith.
I want to have more effective communication with God. Too often I feel like my words are so small, so narrow in their vision, that I accomplish little because I ask little of God. So today I share with you what others have said about prayer, what I want to learn this year about prayer, what I want to own about prayer.
---------------
The only way to Heaven is prayer; a prayer of the heart, which every one is capable of, and not of reasonings which are the fruits of study, or exercise of the imagination, which, in filling the mind with wandering objects, rarely settle it; instead of warming the heart with love to God, they leave it cold and languishing. --Jeanne Guyon
-----------------
Is the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him?....Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray. --Oswald Chambers
----------------------
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, pray for powers equal to your task. --Phillips Brooks
-------------------
Why is it so important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It's important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you "my beloved daughter," "my beloved son," "my beloved child." To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being. --Henri Nouwen
-----------------------------------
Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell God your troubles, that God may comfort you; tell God your joys, that God may sober them; tell God your longings, that God may purify them; tell God your dislikes, that God may help you conquer them; talk to God of your temptations, that God may shield you from them: show God the wounds of your heart, that God may heal them. If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. Talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration say just what you think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God. --Francois Fenelon
-------------------
Whether we think of or speak to God; whether we act or suffer for him; all is prayer when we have no other object than his love, and the desire of pleasing him. --John Wesley
I thank you God that you do not ask us to live the Christian life alone, but in community. And I thank you that this community extends back in history as it extends into the future. May those who might read these words be as encouraged by them, be challenged by them, as I have been, and may we leave words behind us to encourage those who come behind us.
No comments:
Post a Comment