The Book of Not So Common Prayer Quotes

“Martin Luther said he generally prayed two hours every day, except on very busy days. On those days, he prayed three.”
― Linda McCullough Moore, The Book of Not So Common Prayer: A New Way to Pray, A New Way to Live

“Prayer is being consciously in God’s presence, focusing our eyes on him, on who he is, on what he’s like. My prayer took the form of singing hymns and songs of praise, sitting, kneeling, standing, hands raised high, or falling on my face before God. We are flesh and blood. We must pray with our bodies. My prayer was also contemplation, meditation, listening to God’s voice, sometimes writing letters to God, even e-mails.”
― Linda McCullough Moore, The Book of Not So Common Prayer: A New Way to Pray, A New Way to Live

“God is Lord of all, or he is not Lord at all. Christianity is many things, but one thing it is not is a sideline, a nice hobby, a part-time occupation. We have two choices: in or out; holy or not holy. We must never pretend God sent his Son to die so that we might have life occasionally, so that we might flicker in and out. Abide, he says. In me.”
― Linda McCullough Moore, The Book of Not So Common Prayer: A New Way to Pray, A New Way to Live

“no matter how much time we pray, there are hours in the day that we all spend with other people, and I think we could make a pretty strong case that it matters who those people are. I think in every life, one priority is finding one or more seasoned Christians with whom to spend some serious time.”
― Linda McCullough Moore, The Book of Not So Common Prayer: A New Way to Pray, A New Way to Live

“we are nowhere near the heart of prayer until we understand ourselves as wretches—and wretched at that—those beings so lost that nothing short of the death of God could save us. If we are “not so bad really,” then grace is not amazing.”
― Linda McCullough Moore, The Book of Not So Common Prayer: A New Way to Pray, A New Way to Live

“If we wait for everything around us to be OK before we open up our hearts to praise, we will wait forever. The secret in life is to make a place for joy and thanksgiving no matter what the circumstance.”
― Linda McCullough Moore, The Book of Not So Common Prayer: A New Way to Pray, A New Way to Live

“I think the devil must dearly love short prayers, the quick and easy kind where we can dip one toe in, tell ourselves we did it, and console each other: “Prayer is hard.” We shake our heads and say, “It’s not easy,” as if to say God isn’t always there, when truth be told, we haven’t stuck around long enough to find out whether he is or not.”
― Linda McCullough Moore, The Book of Not So Common Prayer: A New Way to Pray, A New Way to Live