Believe me, if you are willing to start at seven o’clock in the evening, without having duties to busy you, and even to put off supper if needed, and to sit with God and read His Word at length without looking at the clock, you will find yourself up until morning. “O Lord, I’ve been up seven hours reading and praying without feeling the time pass!”
—Matthew the Poor, Orthodox Prayer Life
Category: PRAYER
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There will be a storm of issues. Worries will surround you, and maintaining your Christian life will not be easy. But don’t worry. God will help you. Do what is within your power. Can you pray for five minutes a day? Then pray. And if you can’t manage five minutes, pray for two. The rest is God’s affair. Contrary to our expectations, there is no ‘must.’ Such a word does not exist within the Christian life. The idea that something ‘must’ be, or ‘must’ take place, is a product of the intellect,…a logical conclusion….But the word ‘must’ has never moved anyone to do anything. On the contrary, it makes you feel like a slave and discourages you from moving forward.
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I always remember an alcoholic friend who expressed to me his frustration at praying daily for God to remove his desire for drink. Was God even listening? Later it dawned on him that the desire for alcohol was the main reason he prayed so diligently. Persistent temptation had compelled persistent prayer.
Unanswered prayer: God, where are you? -
“There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans forgets his plans, and acts as if he had no plans at all.
There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent. And his mind forms no more propositions, and he asks himself: Did they have a meaning?
There must be a time when the man of prayer goes to pray as if it were the first time in his life he had ever prayed; when the man of resolutions puts his resolutions aside as if they had all been broken, and he learns a different wisdom: distinguishing the sun from the moon, the stars from the darkness, the sea from the dry land, and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill.”
—Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island -
If there is a problem in my life, my fight is not with people, my fight is with God. I’m on my knees talking to God. I’m not fighting with people, I’m not talking to people.
—Fr. Mina Dimitri -
For myself, I am working to make voluntary what will eventually happen anyway. Learning to bear my own company and seeking to bear the company of God are proper to this time. I am noticing some changes. For example, I can barely stand to have the radio or music playing in the car when I’m driving – they’re distractions. I’d rather pray. Nevertheless, the noise of my ADD-addled brain provides ample distraction by itself most of the time. What to do with that noise is a matter of constant learning.
Slowing Down for the Necessary Thing
ARCHPRIEST STEPHEN FREEMAN -
Those who pray, read the Bible, and work and sleep, will be given enlightenment at a moment of God’s grace.
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Sometimes we do not give thanks because we feel that it is too small or insignificant of a matter to give thanks for. Here, we mention one of the sayings of the spiritual fathers, “He is a liar who claims that he gives thanks for much, when he does not give thanks for the little.” Perhaps, we view it as something natural or ordinary and therefore do not feel the need to be thankful for it.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Characteristics of the Spiritual Path -
When pride can’t get people to expect extravagant things of themselves, it does something that may be even worse. It makes them feel they ought to be doing certain fine and marvelous things, and makes them feel hopeless and guilty because they aren’t doing any of them. Like a cruel man overburdening a horse, pride piles heavy false obligations on us until we are nearly crumpled beneath the load. These false obligations are our “shoulds”—the things we have become convinced we “should” do by ourselves. We should avoid offending any other human being. We should make something of ourselves in the world. We should be tolerant and understanding. We should be considerate, generous, kind, and sacrificing. We should love and take care of everybody. We should accept full responsibility for everyone who’s unhappy. And so it goes, one devastating obligation after another. Pride makes people condemn and punish themselves unmercifully when they can’t meet such obligations. Many of the things pride may suggest to you are all right in themselves, but they’re things which are impossible for you to do with your particular personality, or impossible for you to do without growing a great deal spiritually, or impossible for you to do because God has something different in mind for you. And of course every one of them is impossible for you to do by yourself, without God. That’s the real catch with false obligations.
Sometimes pride will let a person think he’s meeting these false obligations well for quite a long time, let him bask in a feeling of personal success, and only then will pull the rug out from under him and point out what a lousy job he’s really been doing. Then a feeling of worthlessness, and often a feeling of being hopelessly doomed to failure, will start building up in a person. Catching false obligations early is a big help. Any time you have even a small feeling of guilt or failure or worthlessness that you can’t seem to get out from under, pray to be delivered from pride and false obligations—and keep praying, no matter how long it takes, until the false obligation that has caused your guilt or failure feeling becomes revealed to you so you can dump it. Praying for deliverance from pride always finally exposes any false obligations you may have and shatters your tyrannical fake conscience.
Who is God? Who Am I? Who Are You?
Dee Pennock
SO GOOD QUOTES 