What does a lighthouse do? I ask myself. It never moves. It cannot hike up its rocky skirt and dash into the ocean to rescue the foundering ship. It cannot calm the waters or clear the shoals. It can only cast light into the darkness. It can only point the way. Yet, through one lighthouse, you guide many ships. Show this old lighthouse the way.
The ever-changing reality in the midst of which we live should awaken us to the possibility of an uninterrupted dialogue with God. By this I do not mean continuous “talk,” or a frivolously conversational form of affective prayer which is sometimes cultivated in convents, but a dialogue of love and of choice. A dialogue of deep wills.
When programs, methods, and money produce impressive results, there is an inclination to confuse human success with divine blessing. Christians can actually behave like practical humanists, living as if God were not necessary. When that happens, passionate longing for God and yearning for His help will be missing—along with His empowerment.
There were places you didn't want to walk, precautions you took that had to do with locks on windows and doors, drawing the curtains, leaving on lights. These things you did were like prayers; you did them and you hoped they would save you. And for the most part they did. Or something did; you could tell by the fact that you were still alive.
Prayer is such an intimate act, a place of vulnerability. It is, hopefully, when we are our least guarded, our most honest selves. And this is good, of course; this is as it ought to be. When we come to God, we certainly want to come as honestly and openly as we can; we want to be our truest selves before him. Prayer lets us be in a place of need.
Three reasons God commands us to pray correlate to our three deepest needs, the fundamental needs of the three powers of our soul: prayer gives truth to our mind, goodness to our will, and beauty to our heart. 'The true, the good, and the beautiful' are the three things we need and love the most, because they are the three attributes of God.
My prayer for you today is that you experience the Love that God has for you in such a profound, childlike way that your perspective is completely transformed. As you encounter circumstances in your life, from the trivial to the catastrophic, may you be more acutely aware of the magnitude of His love for you than the magnitude of the troubles you face.
Prayer is standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart; that is, at that point of our being where there are no divisions or distinctions and where we are totally one. There God's Spirit dwells and there the great encounter takes place. There heart speaks to heart, because there we stand before the face of the Lord, all-seeing, with us.
Heavenly Father, Thank you for taking us into the wilderness time and time again, for there we see revealed the secret sins of our souls. In the desert we experience your great power to save us from our unruly and sinful hearts, and there we complain bitterly when you withhold the pleasures and delicacies of life we have come to expect. Father, forgive us.
There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who do not. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living.
your god may be your little Christian habit - the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, 'I can't do that right now; this is my time alone with God.' No, this is your time alone with your habit.
Some of the most challenging work a suicide survivor can do is to pray. To pray fully, survivors must bring all of themselves to the prayer: their anger, disappointment, fears, insecurities, and why's. I bring all of me into an encounter with God, aware that nothing in the human experience, or the human response to the ambushes of life, is alien to God.
„Boże, dziękuję Ci za to wszystko. Za to całe piękno i dobro, które dostaję od Ciebie. Za te góry i za to niebo, i za te moje dzieci, i za przyjaciół… a nieprzyjaciołom daj, proszę, jeszcze więcej dobrego, żeby się mieli czym zająć i odczepili ode mnie.
Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.It is thy desire in us that desireth. It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also. We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us: Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.
And shall I pray Thee change Thy will, my Father,Until it be according unto mine?But, no, Lord, no, that never shall be, ratherI pray Thee blend my human will with Thine.I pray Thee hush the hurrying, eager longing,I pray Thee soothe the pangs of keen desire—See in my quiet places, wishes thronging—Forbid them, Lord, purge, though it be with fire.
