Things have been pretty dry. I've been helping some people (mostly indirectly, but non the less) come out of / work through links and ties to Freemasonry while not being properly covered. I'm realizing the effects of that now. Gotta have people praying for ya when you go into warfare even when you think its something small.
I've also been reflecting on this Christmas season. Has anybody else noticed the word Christmas being removed from most adds and signage? "Holidays" is the new politically correct term.
Something struck home at 3 AM last night; consumerism is now a full fledged religion of North America. It's affected the way I pray. I need to un-convert.
"How often do I come to God not with consumer requests but simply a desire to spend time with God, to discern what God wants for me and not vice versa?"
Other thoughts on prayer and His presence...
"I have learned so see prayer not as my way of establishing God's presence, rather as my way of responding to God's presence that is a fact whether or not I can detect it."
"... I remind myself that prayer means keeping company with God who is already present."
"... God is already present in my life and all around me; prayer offers the chance to attend and respond to that presence."
Reminds me of The Practice the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.
Concerning listening...
"The quieter the mind, the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is." - Meiser Eckhart
"I became more convinced than ever that God finds ways to communicate to those who truly seek God, especially when we lower the volume of the surrounding static"
"I need to think more about God when I am praying. Even the Lords prayer centers first in what God wants from us. "Hallowed be thy name, your kingdom come, your will be done" - God wants us to desire these things, to orient our lives around them."
"... I mysteriously found that the answers to my prayers for guidance were around me all along. Nothing changed but my receptors; through prayer I opened them to God."
"Though my needs may drive me to prayer, there I come face-to-face with my greatest need: an encounter with God's own self."
"Prayer that is based on relationship and not transaction may be the most freedom-enhancing way of connecting to a God whose vantage point we can never achieve and hardly imagine. Quoting a Psalm, Peter assures us that "the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer." We need not bang a drum or bring animal sacrifices to get God's full attention; we already have it."
*Words in green are quotes from P. Yancey's book Prayer.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Thursday, December 14, 2006
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