God does not mock us with the things He includes in His Word. He isn’t in the business of making His people squirm under some unrealistic expectation that they can never attain—something that is totally unique to one person.
Read MoreCategory Archives: Prayer
Times of Searching
Self-denial does not come naturally. It is a learned virtue (often hard-learned), encouraged by few and modeled by even fewer, especially among those who are what we’ve come to know as Type A personalities.
Read MorePrayer of Faith
Isn’t it amazing how often people try everything but prayer? It’s like the old saying: “When everything else fails, read the instructions.” The same with prayer. When everything else fails, try prayer. “Okay, okay . . . maybe we should pray about it.”
Read MoreDivided Allegiance
Divided allegiance is as wrong as open idolatry. “How long will you hesitate between two opinions?” Elijah asks the people of Israel. The easiest thing to do when you are outnumbered or overwhelmed is to remain in that mediocre state of noncommitment.
Read MoreWhen Tragedy Strikes
I’m deeply impressed by the man’s gentleness. Though Elijah deserved none of the woman’s blame, he stood silent under her blast. That’s gentleness. Someone, somewhere, has called this fruit of the Spirit “the mint-mark of heaven.”
Read MoreWhat Jesus Says You Should Pray For
“The world does not revolve around you!” “You are not the center of the universe!” “Your mother and I are the sun; you’re the moon!” I bet my wife Christy and I have said something like this to our children hundreds, if not thousands, of times—because I have five of those rascals. I’m sure your […]
Read MorePrayer God Will Answer
If you knew God would answer your petitions, how would that change your prayer life? Would you pray more fervently and more often? Philippians 1:9–11 records Paul’s plea for the Philippian church—it was a prayer God was certain to answer. Joy saturated Paul’s prayers for the believers at Philippi. They had joined Paul in the […]
Read MoreA Surprising Answer to Prayer
Many years ago one of my mentors told me a story I have never forgotten. A missionary was home on furlough, traveling by car from church to church. Late one rainy evening, facing a long and lonely all-night journey, he asked the Lord to help him stay awake and make it safely to the next place he would minister.
Read MoreSaying Grace
Most of us did not learn to pray in church. Nor were we taught at school . . . nor even beside our bed at night. If the truth were known, we’ve done more praying around the kitchen table than anywhere else on earth. From our earliest years we’ve been programmed: If you don’t pray, you don’t eat. It started with Pablum and it continues through porterhouse. A meal is incomplete without it.
Read MorePraying to Your Friend
Francois Fenelon, a seventeenth-century Roman Catholic Frenchman, said this about prayer: Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pain, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may . . .
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