“Just as we never learn except as we admit ignorance, there are places in prayer that we cannot experience except from the posture of helplessness. At such times of consummate need we learn things not only about the person extending friendship, but also about our own person. We probably know very little about ourselves until …
“Repentance is crucial not only for our relationship with another; it is an equally crucial quality in a person’s relationship with his or her own soul. Dean W. R. Inge, a theologian who was also a pungent observer of the human scene, once said, “Prayer gives a [person] the opportunity of getting to know a …
“I am sometimes uncomfortable when I hear the psalmist speaking so assuredly of his own merit. Some would reply that I was probably raised on a good deal of self-condemnation. Perhaps, though I doubt that it was excessive. Then, too, it may be that the psalmists were, in the particular instances of self-appraisal, being necessarily …
“Now and again the psalmists pray for judgment on their enemies, but sometimes they catch themselves in the process and examine their own souls, lest their cry for divine vengeance get completely out of hand. In Psalm 139, the writer has just asked God to send judgment on his enemies; but without pausing for a …
“Most of us have heard someone say regretfully of a friendship, “I never heard him say he was sorry.” Even the most earnest friendship or the most ecstatic marriage needs these two words, because even though one may not have caused hurt intentionally, all of us in our humanness sometimes speak an unfortunate word or …
Longing to Pray – Day 24 “It isn’t far from the place of wonder to the place of witness. If we believe deeply in someone, we can hardly refrain from testifying to the beauty we find in him or her. Without a doubt, the favorite psalm is Psalm 23… and this is a psalm of …
Longing to Pray – Day 23 “The writers of the psalms are fully satisfied that there is no one to be compared to the Lord God. They may have their times when they question and complain, but when the vote comes in, there is no negative. The God of Israel is great, and greatly to …
Longing to Pray – Day 22 “our repentance should go beyond superficial thinking, so we consider why we have sinned, and what it is in us that inclines toward particular failings. With such realization we equip ourselves to walk more uprightly in the future, and to guard against carelessly falling into the same destructive patterns.” …
Longing to Pray – Day 21 “In this matter of petitioning God by specific names, I confess a simple faith, but one that is significant enough to me that I dare to recommend it to you. As I go about each day, numbers of persons come to mind. Some names appear logically – I see …
Longing to Pray – Day 20 “When the psalmist repents, he isn’t content to make a blanket request for forgiveness. Rahter, he uses three different words for sin and three specific words for the kind of action he wants taken to his sins (“Blot out my transgressions./Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,/and cleanse me from …