God gives you what is of benefit to you and not what you ask for, unless that which you ask for is of benefit to you, and this is because oftentimes you ask for that which will not benefit you.
Pope Shenouda III, A Whisper of Love: Poems, Prayers and Sayings
Category: PRAYER
-
Do not attempt to assess the quality of your prayer. God alone can judge its value. To us, our own prayer must always appear so poor an effort, so inadequate an achievement, that the cry of the publican spontaneously rises to our lips. [252]
-
Pray simply. Do not expect to find in your heart any remarkable gift of prayer. Consider yourself unworthy of it. Then you will find peace. Use the empty cold dryness of your prayer as food for your humility. Repeat constantly: I am not worthy; Lord, I am not worthy! But say it calmly, without agitation. This humble prayer, unlike the sweet one you delight in, will be acceptable to God.
-
12. LET MY PRAYER COME BEFORE YOU
Behold, O Lord, I cry out to You from the depth of my heart. I bellow out to You as a child calling tearfully to his father, his aid. Likewise, I cry out to You, O compassionate one, O Omnipotent. It is a cry for help, a cry of faith, of hope, and of need—an adamant cry. This reminds me of the Egyptian poet, who in one of his poems explained the force of this cry:
“My voice is like the cry of one sinking, hollering out to a lifeboat. He cries, cries, cries, he cries out all he can—for his life.” It is a scream, not just a cry. A cry that attracts Your gentleness, O Lord.
I cry out to You, O Lord, for You to hear my prayer, for my prayer to come before You, for You to accept it, despite my sins and unworthiness, although I sense the familiarity between us is absent. All I want is for my prayer to reach You; I leave the rest to Your love-You who do not treat me according to my sins, but according to Your mercy. We know that requests reach You, even if we do not pray, as You preceded and said, “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them” (Ex 3:7-8). All this and they had not prayed yet!
“Lord, hear my voice!” (Ps 130:2). Help me feel that You have received my prayer, took note of it, and that my cry has reached Your ear; this is sufficient for me.
I pray, for You to hear my prayers; I will persist in prayer until I am certain. I am confident once You hear my prayer, You will act. For Your name’s sake, I await Your salvation. I wait until I receive Your aid, and until I earn Your forgiveness. What is this name on which I waited? Your name: the Savior. Of You, the angel of annunciation said: “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Mt 1:21). The word Jesus means Savior.H.H.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Dialogue with the Divine
-
God is answering in 4 ways: delaying, reversing the request, not answering, or answering immediately.
-
David the prophet was accustomed to thanking God in the psalms, even before his request was answered, thanking Him at the same time he was presenting his request, confident that it would be answered.
Then he would continue in thanksgiving until the answer actually came, for faith and submission to the will of God were distinguishing features in David’s personality and life, not to mention the exceeding thanksgiving which he usually offered after his request was answered.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Pray
-
When I pray to God, the result, of which I am absolutely confident, is that God will give me peace. When I pray for someone who is ill, that the Lord may heal them, it is not important that the Lord heals this person who is ill, as He did not heal Paul the Apostle; rather, the important thing is that He will give the person peace.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Pray -
What prevents you then from making God a friend of yours, importuning Him through a boldness stemming from your long companionship with Him and from being always in contact with Him? Therefore, you should not feel ashamed to ask Him for anything for the sake of your loved ones and friends, at a suitable time and an unsuitable time, like a friend in the middle of the night, and even if your requests were strange and may appear impossible according to men’s understanding, and even if perhaps no one has ever asked for them before you did.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Pray
-
He who becomes weak and falls, let him not postpone his repentance, lest he wallow more in sin and his determination become weaker. Also, let him not be ashamed, because of his sin, to offer his prayer to God in its appointed time, even if this were after falling into sin immediately, claiming that his mind and conscience have become defiled, and it would not be fitting for him to stand before God and lift up his hands to heaven. These, my brother, are demonic thoughts, with which the devil dominates you through his cunning, so that you may not run away from him quickly.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Pray
-
But if I say to myself, “God knows what I want and knows what I desire, so why should I pray? There is no point in praying. I will not ask God for anything, and if God wants to give it to me, He will. And if He does not want to give it to me, then He will not.” My beloved, this understanding and conduct are not Christian at all. For the will of God is that we ask.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Pray
SO GOOD QUOTES 