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After decades of night-and-day prayer, I have come to believe that 99 percent of it is just showing up: making the effort to become consciously present to the God who is constantly present to us.
You cannot grow in prayer without some measure of effort and discomfort, self-discipline and self-denial.
A Christian who prays only when they feel like it may survive but will never thrive.
Life sometimes hurts, but I’ve discovered that deleting God from the equation doesn’t actually help. It merely removes all meaning and morality from the mess and all real hope from the future.
Instead of waiting to worship until I feel like it (which could be a very long wait indeed), I begin to thank God for all the evidence of his love in my life—often speaking out loud—until my feelings fall into line with the facts.
I suspect that unemotional worship—the kind that feels a bit forced and fake—is precious to God precisely because it is so costly to us.
And so I decided to spend some time asking God what he wanted, instead of telling him what I wanted.
If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my word and witness. If he wants it to, my life will bear fruit through my prayers and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is his concern, not mine. It would be indecent of me to worry about that.
Our greatest need and God’s greatest gift are the same thing: forgiveness of sins.
