Notable Quotes September 14, 2015
Anytime I need to refresh my prayer life, I review Paul Miller’s outstanding book A Praying Life. I’ve quoted it extensively in the past, but I hope you won’t mind a refresher here:
“Prayer is meant to be the conversation where your life and your God meet.”
“You don’t experience God; you get to know him. You submit to him. You enjoy him. He is, after all, a person.”
“Learning to pray doesn’t offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart.”
“A needy heart is a praying heart. Dependency is the heartbeat of prayer.”
“If you learn to pray, you learn to dream again.”
“When your mind starts wandering in prayer, be like a little child. Don’t worry about being organized or staying on task. …Pray about what your mind is wandering to. Maybe it is something that is important to you.”
“You don’t create intimacy. You make room for it. …Efficiency, multitasking, and busyness all kill intimacy. In short, you can’t get to know God on the fly.”
“If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life.”
“Prayer mirrors the gospel. In the gospel, the Father takes us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of salvation. In prayer, the Father receives us as we are because of Jesus and gives us the gift of help.”
“When you stop trying to control your life and instead allow your anxieties and problems to bring you to God in prayer, you shift from worry to watching.”
“What do I lose when I have a praying life? Control. Independence. What do I gain? Friendship with God. A quiet heart. …Essentially, I lose my kingdom and get his. I move from being an independent player to a dependent lover.”
“Self-will and prayer are both ways of getting things done. At the center of self-will is me, carving a world in my image, but at the center of prayer is God, carving me in his Son’s image.”
“God takes everyone he loves through a desert. It is his cure for our wandering hearts, restlessly searching for a new Eden.”
“We think spiritual things—if done right—should just flow. But if you have a disability, nothing flows, especially in the beginning.”