#prayer

I hear another man cry, “Oh, sir my want of strength lies mainly in this, that I cannot repent sufficiently!” A curious idea men have of what repentance is! Many fancy that so many tears are to be shed, and so many groans are to be heaved, and so much despair is to be endured. Whence comes this unreasonable notion? Unbelief and despair are sins, and therefore I do not see how they can be constituent elements of acceptable repentance; yet there are many who regard them as necessary parts of true Christian experience. They are in great error. Still, I know what they mean, for in the days of my darkness I used to feel in the same way. I desired to repent, but I thought that I could not do it, and yet all the while I was repenting. Odd as it may sound, I felt that I could not feel. I used to get into a corner and weep, because I could not weep; and I fell into bitter sorrow because I could not sorrow for sin. What a jumble it all is when in our unbelieving state we begin to judge our own condition! It is like a blind man looking at his own eyes. My heart was melted within me for fear, because I thought that my heart was as hard as an adamant stone. My heart was broken to think that it would not break. Now I can see that I was exhibiting the very thing which I thought I did not possess; but then I knew not where I was. Remember that the man who truly repents is never satisfied with his own repentance. We can no more repent perfectly than we can live perfectly. However pure our tears, there will always be some dirt in them: there will be something to be repented of even in our best repentance. But listen! To repent is to change your mind about sin, and Christ, and all the great things of God. There is sorrow implied in this; but the main point is the turning of the heart from sin to Christ. If there be this turning, you have the essence of true repentance, even though no alarm and no despair should ever have cast their shadow upon your mind. ↗

— Charles H. Spurgeon

#faith #forgiveness #prayer #repentance #sin

Prayer is not so much the means whereby God's will is bent to man's desires, as it is that whereby man's will is bent to God's desires. ↗

— Charles Bent

#desires #god #man #means #much

For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God. ↗

— Saint Teresa

#else #friendship #god #nothing #prayer

Rather than set aside daily time for prayer, I pray constantly and spontaneously about everything I encounter on a daily basis. When someone shares something with me, I'll often simply say, 'let's pray about this right now.' ↗

— Thomas Kinkade

#aside #basis #constantly #daily #daily basis

We can never know for certain where our prayers are likely to go, nor from whom the answers will come. Just when we think we are at our nearest to God, we could be assisting the Devil. ↗

— Norman Mailer

#assisting #certain #come #could #devil

Cold prayers, like cold suitors, are seldom effective in their aims. ↗

— Elisabeth Elliot

#life

Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit. ↗

— Anne Lamott

#meaning #prayer #trouble #life

When I look back, I realize I was praying for something God had already given me. ↗

— Steve Maraboli

#life #prayer #experience

Prayer is not a means of removing the unknown and predictable elements in life, but rather a way of including the unknown and unpredictable in the outworking of the grace of God in our lives. ↗

— Philip Yancey

#religion #life

Doa yang tulus dan dengan cinta, adalah kekuatan besar yang bisa menyelamatkan siapa pun, termasuk orang yang mendoakannya. ↗

— Amanda Inez

#hope #love #prayer #beauty