Supernatural
Chapter 2 So Why Not Ask? Oh that you would bless me indeed.
You are at a spiritual retreat in the mountains with other who want to experience a fuller Christian life. For the duration of the retreat everyone has been matched with a mentor. Yours is in her seventies, and she's been touching lives for God longer than you've been alive. On the way to the showers the first morning, you walk past her room. Her door is ajar, and she has just knelt down to pray. You can't resist. How exactly does a giant of faith begin her prayers? You wonder.
You pause and lean closer. Will she pray for revival? Pray for the hungry around the world. Pray for you?
But this is what you hear: "O Lord, I beg you first and most this morning, please bless…me!"
Startled at such a selfish prayer, you pad down the gall to your shower. But as you're adjusting the water temperature, a thought hits you. It's so obvious, you can't believe you haven't thought it before:
Great women and men of the faith think differently than the rest of us.
By the time you're dressed and heading for breakfast, you're sure of it. The reason some women and men of faith rise above the rest, you decide, is that they think and pray differently than those around them.
Is it possible that God wants you to be "selfish" in your prayers? To ask for more -- and more again -- from your Lord? I've met so many earnest Christians who take it as a sign of immaturity to think such thoughts. They assume they'll seem impolite or greedy if they ask God for too many blessings.
Maybe you think like that. If you do, I want to show you that such a prayer is not the self-centered act it might appear, but a supremely spiritual one and exactly the k...
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...goodness in so much abundance that it overflows into our unworthy lives. If you think about God in any other way than that, I'm asking you to change you the way you think. Why not make it a lifelong commitment to ask God everyday to bless you -- and while God's at it, bless you a lot?
God's bounty is limited only by us, not my His resources, power, or willingness to give. Jabez was blessed simply because he refused to let any obstacle, person, or opinion, loom larger than God's nature. And God's nature is to bless.
His kindness in recording Jabez's story in the Bible is proof that it's not who you are, or what your parents decided for you, or what you were "fated" to be that counts. What counts is knowing who you want to be and asking for it.
Through a simple, believing prayer, you can change your future. You can change what happens one minute from now.
The Blessing and Invocation of God over Baptismal Water evokes the history of baptism. The sacred scripture of the Bible is the etymology of the prayer, as it accentuates the purpose; it illustrates the new birth and death the newly baptized are involved in. The prayer is structured in stanzas of four sections. The first section makes reference to God’s power and amplifies the faithful’s gratitude to God’s grace that is received, the second section relates to the Old Testament and portrays the power and role of water that baptised and immersed the evil to reveal the virtuous
While comparing her time, theology and spiritual practice we realize she lived during the time of immense change, similarly we are living on the edge of a challenged modernity. Her spiritual direction allows us to recognize and develop further abilities in our pastoral ministries of caring for one another as participants within the corporate communities as well as within the mission fields.
Even when she was sick, nearing the end of her journey here on earth, she continued praying for others, mostly their healing in addition to their salvation. She prayed daily, in private, asking God for his hand to touch others hearts and souls. Never once did she ask for anything for herself. While enduring chemotherapy, she came to work as long as she felt she could. My mother did these things out of care and concern for others. These actions were done not for her own reward, but because it was the right thing to
Throughout her early life, Dorothy has been confused about her call of being a Christian. As a little girl, Dorothy was always taught things about Christianity, whether that meant how to behave, how to pray, or even how to think. The reason she began to lose trust in her faith is because no one ever told her why she was doing things a certain way. For her, one of the greatest source of inspiration was the Psalms. “...through these Psalms and canticles I called on all creation to join with me in blessing the Lord. I thanked him for creating me, saving me from all evils, filling me with all good things” (29). Dorothy felt connected to God by reading the Psalms. She felt joyous and enthusiastic to communicate with God in such a way. Another religious influence she had was a volume of John Wesley’s sermons in her early teens. As she grew older and more attached to the materialistic world, her faith slowly became a part of her life that held little or no importance to her.
Screwtape uses psychology to manipulate the patient into replacing the intellect and will in prayer with imagination and emotion. To remind the patient of his childhood prayers is the fist step; it causes him to repel from this way of prayer, and on his own attempt to create a prayerful mood that is spontaneous and inward, and that is void of will and intelligence. Another way is to keep the patients prayers solely focused on himself instead of God, so that when he asks for favors or graces he will develop imaginary emotions to satisfy these requests; replacing intellect and will with imagination and emotion. Furthermore, Screwtape shows how twisting the patient’s object of prayer so that he is praying to it, a crucifix or an icon, instead of God, inconspicuously deletes will and intellect in prayer. Using effective psychology, Screwtape shows how to successfully replace intellect and will in a persons prayer life with imagination and emotion.
...is seems to line up well with the serenity prayer: “Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Our task as humans is to discern these wills in our lives and separate them. We must not become embittered, but rather empowered, clinging to the knowledge that there is an ever-benevolent God constantly working for our good, and that he always has a plan for us amidst trial presented by life on earth. In order to discern this will though, we have to be on the lookout for it with an awareness of its separateness from our own fears and desires. This discernment is also difficult because of our limited perspectives as humans, and thus we need humility in our search. The most important thing, however, is the search itself: we must all continue to search for the will.
remembered the first message God had told her, “He said, You have to do this, and I’ll help
that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him
reminds him, "had a consecration of its own. We felt it so! We said to each
prayer was pointless on the account of God will do what is right regardless of you asking. Kant
Or if you know Christ, and you have drifted away, and sought after trivial things that will fade away while the one true God remains, pray it out!
Prayer is so powerful that we don’t even realise what it can do for others and our own lives. The physical world is always effected by what’s happening in the spiritual world first so prayer is the place to go!
Gandhi once said that “Prayer is not asking”. It is a longing for the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness.” Despite the fact that Gandhi was not a Christian, he understood the significance of prayer and the futility of man. But long before Gandhi’s time, lived a humble man of God named Daniel.
As a nurse, she hopes to become more cultured in the different beliefs of others in order to truly care for her patients in the best way. Having an understanding of what gives her strength, however, will allow her to perhaps offer guidance to those who feel lost or even pray with those who find peace in religion. Though she may not always understand the practices of others, she knows that spirituality has the power to truly help heal those in need and she plans to respect all practices and only intervene if the practices seem detrimental to the health of the patient or
Our affections cling to self and to worldly objectives; our prayers cannot rise above their level, no matter what words we use. In Luke 11:1 it says, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” We should be taught to pray either from the church or from the people around us. Taught in a sense of listening, not actually taking lessons from it. We need to pray because prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness that God requires of us.