Categories
prayer

With prayer

With prayer, one can go on cheerfully and even happily, while without prayer, how grim is the journey. Prayer is as necessary to life as breathing. It is drink and food.

Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 40). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

Prayer isn’t like sit ups.

It’s not a thing.

It’s not a thing you do to get some other thing.

Prayer is knowing Someone is there

who loves you,

who would die to be with you,

who hears and understands,

who knows exactly who you are,

who you are meant to be,

who will take you there no matter what,

who will never leave you or forsake you.

Prayer is staying close to that Person as if your life and hope and happiness depended on it.

That Person, for me, is Jesus.

If you like, he will be that Person for you, too.


  • How does the quote from Dorothy Day strike you? How is your experience compared to hers?
  • Do you view prayer as a ‘spiritual exercise’, like sit ups? If so, what do you seek to gain by such exercise? Do you find it helpful?
  • How does my reflection on prayer strike you? What seems true or helpful? What seems far-fetched or missing?
  • I encourage you to take time to write out your thoughts, to share them in the comments below if you like, or to share them with someone close to you.

Grace and peace to you…

dw

Copyright © 2020, becomingflame.com

Categories
Other Writings Poetry prayer

Forced prayer

If you have to force yourself to pray, those prayers are of far more account with God than any prayers which bring comfort with them.

Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 49). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.
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Prayer (en)forced by discipline

Better than no prayer at all

Maybe

Prayer forced by need

Day after day

Hour after hour

Even if only

“I need You”

Certain

dw

Copyright © 2020, becomingflame.com

Categories
love Poetry

Our greatest danger

OUR GREATEST DANGER is not our sins but our indifference. We must be in love with God. It is not so much to change what we are doing, but our intention, our motive.

Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 29). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.
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What I do,
What I intend to do,
And how I feel about it
(I keep thinking)

Are distinct,
Separate, in fact,
And controllable,
(I keep telling myself)

Their interactions civil
And honorable
To any casual observer
(I keep believing)

Until the slightest whisper of a feeling
Changes my mind and my actions
Forever

dw

Copyright © 2020, becomingflame.com