This Sunday’s readings: Luke 11:5-13

Reflections

… pray as if you were to die tomorrow.
~ Benjamin Franklin

We must lay before him what is in us; not what ought to be in us.
~ C.S. Lewis

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I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me. We say that we believe God to be omniscient; yet a great deal of prayer seems to consist of giving him information.
~ C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm

We should not decide how to pray based on the experiences and feelings we want. Instead, we should do everything possible to behold our God as he is, and prayer will follow. The more clearly we grasp who God is, the more our prayer is shaped and determined accordingly.” “If we can’t say ‘thy will be done’ from the bottom of our hearts, we will never know any peace. We will feel compelled to try to control people and control our environment and make things the way we believe they ought to be.
~ Timothy Keller, 1950-2023, Pastor, Thinker

The best bit of advice I ever received about how to pray was this: keep it simple, keep it real, keep it up. You’ve got to keep it simple so that the most natural thing in the world doesn’t become complicated, weird and intense. You’ve got to keep it real because when life hurts like hell you’re going to be tempted to pretend you’re fine. And then at other times, when you make a mess of things, you’re going to be tempted to hide from God (which never really works) and end up hiding from yourself (which works quite well). And you’ve got to keep it up because life is tough, the battle is fierce, and God is not an algorithm. The journey of faith demands a certain bloody-mindedness of us all, not least in the realm of prayer.
~ Pete Greig, How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People

I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.
~ Martin Luther

This Sunday’s readings: Luke 6:27-36

Reflections

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Most people want to grow, but the price of growth is pain. … Christ never intended to cover up the dark side of life, but rather to illuminate a path through it.
~ Dan B. Allender , Author/Psychologist

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We don’t have an anger problem in America. We have a contempt problem. … If you listen to how people talk to each other today, you notice it is with pure contempt. When somebody around you treats you with contempt, you never quite forget it. So if we want to solve the problem of polarization today, we have to solve the contempt problem.
~ Arthur C Brooks, Love Your Enemies

If you have things you’re unwilling to lose, evil will have power over you. Our calling is to recognize and disempower evil’s power. We must look them in the eye and know full well, that while you want to do me harm, my heart is good towards you. I want to bless you. I will stand before you to do you good.
~ Dan Allender

What is perfection in love? Love your enemies in such a way that you would desire to make them your brothers…
~ Saint Augustine

We forget that God’s primary goal is not changing our situations or relationships so that we can be happy, but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy.
~ Paul David Tripp, Pastor/Author

She quoted Jesus and told me I needed to learn to turn the other cheek. “These things hit you,” she said. “They punched you in the face and now you have a choice. You can keep focusing on them and judging people who do them, or you can turn your cheek and focus on something new. Before you were obsessed with loving drugs, now you’re obsessed with hating them. Either way, your life is still ruled by them.
~ Michael J Heil, Public Speaker, Author of Pursued:
God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose