If you’re angry at somebody, if you’re bitter at somebody, prayer is the first step. Something mystical happens in prayer: the person you’re angry at, the person you’re annoyed at, when you start praying for them, God melts your heart. If you’re consistently praying for that person, when you approach that person, your demeanor is different, your mentality is different, you’re not looking at that person the same way.
Category: PRAYER
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God is answering in four ways: delaying, reversing the request, not answering, or answering immediately.
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Very often we do not find sufficient intensity in our prayer, sufficient conviction, sufficient faith, because our despair is not deep enough. We want God in addition to so many other things we have. We want His help, but simultaneously we are trying to get help wherever we can, and we keep God in store for our last push. We address ourselves to the princes and the sons of men, and we say ‘O God, give them strength to do it for me.’ Very seldom do we turn away from the princes and sons of men and say, ‘I will not ask anyone for help, I would rather have Your help.’ If our despair comes from sufficient depth, if what we ask for, cry for, is so essential that it sums up all the needs of our life, then we find words of prayer and we will be able to reach the core of the prayer, the meeting with God.
—Met. Anthony Bloom, Beginning To Pray -
When we do these tasks – to pray, to repent and confess faithfully, to read the scriptures, to read the fathers, to come to church and partake of the eucharist, to serve faithfully, to be faithful to our spouses, to be faithful to our children and our parents – these are the things that manifest God in our lives. They relieve my anxiety about discerning whether or not I’m fulfilling God’s will; I’m doing whatever He is telling me to do, whatever He is picking my conscience to do.
SO GOOD QUOTES 