prayer

High and holy ambition--to be a saint--is not opposed to holy humility--total reliance on God's grace. Exactly the opposite. Ambition without humility is ambition that fails. It is pride, which goes before a fall (Prov 16:18). Humility without ambition is false humility.

Make this poor self grow less and less, Be Thou my life and aim ; Oh, make me daily, through Thy grace, More worthy of Thy name.

Since God exists outside of time, He also has all of the time He needs to personally act in each of our lives. There is never a rush to the next meeting or the next message.

If you are not realizing your desires, you are not desiring in faith with all your heart.

Lack of spiritual desire should grieve us and lead us to lament its absence, to seek earnestly for its bestowal, so that our praying, henceforth, should be an expression of the soul's sincere desire.

I'll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful.I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.

Many people have found prayer impossible because they thought they should only pray for wonderful but remote needs they actually had little or no interest in or even knowledge of. Prayer simply dies from efforts to pray about __ood things_ that honestly do not matter to us. The way to get to meaningful prayer for those good things is to start by praying for what we are truly interested in. The circle of our interests will inevitably grow in the largeness of God__ love._ --Dallas Willard

Hadn__ retired reporter Stan warned him of how protective Cosimo was of his granddaughters? What if the Carusos had discovered his identity and wanted to rub him out as they__ rubbed out his father?Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now andat the hour of our death.

It is possible to pray in such a way that one does not transcend the world, in such a way that the divine is degraded to a functional part of the workaday world... then it is no longer devotion to the divine, but an attempt to master it.

Continual prayer is a lifestyle."~R. Alan Woods [2013]

Not only did Jesus purposefully enter the wilderness on a regular basis but historically, God seems to prefer meeting with man in these desert regions.

For the first time in my life, I fully realized that I was not in charge. I knew that I needed to submit to Heavenly Father's will. I couldn't have what I wanted when and how I wanted it just because I was keeping the commandments. The purpose of prayer was not to tell Heavenly Father what to do, rather to find out what He would have me do and learn. I needed to align my will with His...Prayer is less about changing our circumstances and more about changing us. It is about seeking His will and asking for His help to do what we need to do."June 2013 Ensign, "Improving Your Personal Prayers

Throughout my life, until this very moment, whatever virtue I have accomplished, including any benefit that may come from this book, I dedicate to the welfare of all beings.May the roots of suffering diminish. May warfare, violence, neglect, indifference, and addiction also decrease.May the wisdom and compassion of all beings increase, now and in the future.May we clearly see all the barriers we erect between ourselves and others to be as insubstantial as our dreams.May we appreciate the great perfection of all phenomena.May we continue to open our hearts and minds, in order to work ceaselessly for the benefit of all beings.May we go to the places that scare us.May we lead the life of a warrior.

What would your prayers look like if you believed that the cross really was the measure of God's compassion for someone?

So what do you do when you are stuck?The first thing I do when I am stuck is pray. But I__ not talking about a quick, Help me Lord, Sunday__ a comin_ prayer. When I get stuck I get up from my desk to head for my closet. Literally. If I__ at the office I go over to a corner that I have deemed my closet away from home. I get on my knees and remind God that this was not my idea, it was His_None of this is new information to God_Then I ask God to show me if there is something He wants to say to prepare me for what He wants me to communicate to our congregation. I surrender my ideas, my outline and my topic. Then I just stay in that quiet place until God quiets my heart_Many times I will have a breakthrough thought or idea that brings clarity to my message. . .Like you, I am simply a mouthpiece. Getting stuck is one way God keeps me ever conscious of that fact.

I hear another man cry, __h, 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.

One common cause of this mistake of preferring to imagine and admire a great ideal instead of beginning to do little deeds is our impatience with little baby steps, our lack of humility.

Choose God, his word, prayer, and spiritual vitamins. As you fight the battle with these tools, you will also be simultaneously choosing your victory.