Longing to Pray – Day 11 Presumptuous Friendship: part 1 “The more we experience of the goodness of God, the more we are in danger of the ingratitude that neglects the source of that goodness. In any friendship, human or divine, we need to pause at frequent intervals and ask ourselves if we have allowed …
Longing to Pray – Day 10 “The psalmists didn’t lecture about time with God, they simply implemented it. Is there something to be said to God? Then say it – not once, but twice or three times. And don’t say it the same way each time to do so would be to engage in the …
Longing to Pray – Day 9 “those who pray best are those who schedule prayer into their day the way they schedule everything else that is important. I believe in Paul’s admonition to “pray without ceasing”, and I seek in my uneven way to fulfill his counsel. But I have learned – as perhaps you …
Longing to Pray – Day 8 “Now and then, as an average friendship grows, we confess that we had at first sold the other person short. We didn’t know how much there was to the person; we might even have thought the person was shallow, until we got below the surface. Then we realized the …
Longing to Pray – Day 7 “I take some strange comfort in Bonhoeffer’s saying that we “are inclined to pray too hurriedly.” Then it is not simply our speed-ridden, computer-driven, instant-satisfaction culture that can’t find time to pray, or that seeks quick-fix spirituality; Bonhoeffer dealt with the same problem sixty or seventy years ago. And …
Longing to Pray – Day 6 Psalm 44:1-8 1 We have heard it with our ears, O God; our ancestors have told us what you did in their days, in days long ago. 2 With your hand you drove out the nations and planted our ancestors; you crushed the peoples and made our ancestors flourish. …
Longing to Pray – Day 5 “In the final measure, God is the only Friend with whom we can be utterly and completely honest. Our God is strong enough to hear our complaints, including especially those complaints that may reflect on God’s own character. God is never shocked by what we say. God never says, …
Longing to Pray – Day 4 “I think God is the kind of good Friend who enlists other people to pray for us. I think that’s what may be happening on those occasions when someone comes to the mind unbidden; this may be God’s nudge to pray for that person. But God reveals no secrets …
We are privileged to see the spiritual giants who wrote the psalms, not in portraits of their spiritual finery, but in the rags of their candid struggles. No wonder, then, that in our own times of despair and struggle, we turn to the book of Psalms. We know we will find some spiritual kin there.” …
“Since friendship unfolds in the context of daily life, it can hardly be expected to fit into neatly engineered rules. Friendship has more to do with desire than with design. It is a grand thing, but it flourishes in common places, and often in unlikely ones, like the flower that blooms through a crack in …