A few more thoughts for you on prayer. They're not my own, but I'm finding out on this journey that I don't have to reinvent the wheel. There are so many others who have gone before me (and are still journeying), who have amazing insights on what prayer was meant to be. I hope you enjoy these. And let them lead you into prayer, not make you feel condemned, okay?
Prayer--Why We Struggle and How Not To (Ann Voskamp, A Holy Experience)
"The only reason we fail to pray is because we've made an idol out of self. I discover it on a Thursday picking up errant crayons, scattered legos, swiping up crumbs. I can't stop. I'd like to. I keep glancing at the clock, knowing it's time to rest, to close my eyes and pause for morning prayer. Pray like Jesus and all Jews did through the centuries, like the fixed hour prayer of David , the set prayer times like Daniel, the particular hours like Peter and John and the Early Christians.It's time to stop to pray, but I'm too busy cleaning house...."
Corrie Ten Boom -- "Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden."
E.M. Bounds (The Essentials of Prayer) -- "Paul, in urging patience in tribulation, connects [trouble] directly with prayer, as if prayer alone would place us where we could be patient when tribulation comes: 'Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer' (Romans 12:12). He here couples up tribulation and prayer, showing their close relationship and the worth of prayer in begetting and culturing patience in tribulation. In fact, there can be no patience exemplified when trouble comes except as it is secured through instant and continued prayer. In the school of prayer is where patience is learned and practiced. Prayer brings us into that state of grace where tribulation is not only endured, but where there is under it a spirit of rejoicing."
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
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