Quotes About Prayer

I am not worried now and I never have nor will. You must learn to tell worry from thought and thought from prayer. Sometimes a light will go from your life and your life becomes a prayer til you are strong enough to stand under the weight of your own thought again.

To his complete astonishment, he later found himself offering up a stumbling prayer that the dog would be protected. It was a moment in which he felt a desperate need to believe in a God that shepherded his own creations. But, even praying, he felt a twinge of self-reproach, and knew he might start mocking his own prayer at any second. Somehow, though, he managed to ignore his iconoclastic self and went on praying anyway. Because he wanted the dog, because he needed the dog.

It was a moment in which he felt a desperate need to believe in a God that shepherded his own creations. But, even praying, he felt a twinge of self-reproach, and knew he might start mocking his own prayer at any second. Somehow, though, he managed to ignore his iconoclastic self and went on praying anyway. Because he wanted the dog, because he needed the dog.

said that when it happened, the French would pray for the victims, the British would organize their rescue, and the Americans would pay for

I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.

A lot of us pray as if prayer is really twisting the arm of God or convincing God to do something. We think by saying more words we'll talk God into it. We think, "If I say it one more time, God will agree with me." That very attitude is an alienating attitude. It keeps us in the role of doing it "right" or often enough to convince an unready or unwilling God. Wrong, wrong, wrong! 19 minutes ago

If your prayer is not enticing you outside your comfort zones, if your Christ is not an occasional "threat," you probably need to do some growing up and learning to love.

Contemplation, sadly, helps you see your woundedness! That's why most people do not stay long with contemplative prayer, because it's not very glorious. It's a continual humiliation, realizing, "Oh my God, I did it again. I still don't know how to love!

Francis's all-night prayer, "Who are you, O God, and who am I?" is probably a perfect prayer, because it is the most honest prayer we can offer.

But in this book, I use "prayer" as the umbrella word for any interior journeys or practices that allow you to experience faith, hope, and love within yourself.

To pray is to build your own house. To pray is to discover that Someone else is within your house. To pray is to recognize that it is not your house at all.

Prayer is not primarily saying words or thinking thoughts. It is, rather, a stance. It's a way of living in the Presence, living in awareness of the Presence, and even of enjoying the Presence. The full contemplative is not just aware of the Presence, but trusts, allows, and delights in it.

In short, good leaders must have a certain capacity for non-polarity thinking and full-access knowing (prayer), a tolerance for ambiguity ( faith), an ability to hold creative tensions (hope), and an ability to care (love) beyond their own personal advantage.

Without an inner life, our outer prayer will soon become superficial, ego-centered, and even counterproductive on the spiritual path.

God can help you get what you want, which is still a self-centered desire, instead of God's much better role—which is to help you know what you really desire (Luke 11:13; Matthew 7:11).

The unprayerful heart will always twist reality to its own liking.

Once your life has become a constant communion, you know that all the techniques, formulas, sacraments, and practices were just a dress rehearsal for the real thing—life itself—which can actually become a constant intentional prayer.

To keep the mind space open, we need some form of contemplative or meditation practice. This has been the most neglected in recent centuries, substituting the mere reciting and "saying" of prayers, which is not the same as a contemplative mind, and often merely confirms us in our superior or fear-based system.

Remember, "God" is just a word for Reality—with a Face! And occasionally Interface (which some call "prayer" or "love").

Ask, and it will be given to you; search and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For the one who asks always receives; the one who searches always finds; the one who knocks will always have the door opened." —Matthew 7:7–8

How can anyone read the whole or even a small part of John 17 and think either Christ or Jesus is about anything other than unity and union? "Father, may they all be one," Christ says in verse 21, repeating this same desire and intention in many ways in the full prayer. I suspect God gets what God prays for!

The spiritual journey is a constant interplay between moments of awe, followed by a general process of surrender to that moment. We must first allow ourselves to be captured by the goodness, the truth, or beauty of something beyond and outside ourselves. Then we universalize from that moment to the goodness, truth, and beauty of the rest of reality, until our realization eventually ricochets back to include ourselves. This is the great inner dialogue we call prayer.

Courthouses are good and necessary first half of life institutes. In the second half, you try instead to influence events, work for change, quietly persuade, change your own attitude, pray or forgive instead of taking things to court.

As the old joke put it: It is forbidden to smoke while you are praying! But it is wonderful and meritorious to pray while you are smoking!