I was reading a chapter in E.M. Bounds' book,
Purpose in Prayer, and loved this excerpt....so I thought I'd share it with you all :
In God's name, I beseech you, let prayer nourish your soul as you meals nourish your body. Let your fixed seasons of prayer keep you in God's presence through the day, and may His presence frequently remembered through it be an ever fresh spring of prayer. Such a brief, loving recollection of God renews a man's whole being, quiets his passions, supplies light and counsel in difficulty, gradually subdues the temper, and causes him to possess his soul in patience, or rather gives it up to the possession of God. --Fenelon"...Equally notable is the testimony of Sir Thomas Browne, the beloved physician who lived in Norwich, England, in 1605, and was the author of a very remarkable book of wide circulation,
Religio Medici. In spite of the fact that England was passing through a period of national convulsion and political excitement, he found comfort and strength in prayer. 'I have resolved,' he wrote in a journal found among his private papers after death, 'to pray more and pray always, to pray in all places where quietness invites me to pray: in the house, on the highway, and on the street. And I have resolved to know no street or passage in this city that may not witness that I have not forgotten God.' And he added,
'I purpose to take occasion of praying upon the sight of any church that I may pass, that God may be worshipped there in spirit, and that souls may be saved there. I purpose to pray daily for my sick patients and for the patients of other physicians; to say at my entrance into any home, 'May the peace of God abide here'; to pray, after hearing a sermon, for a blessing on God's truth and upon the messenger; to bless God, upon the sight of a beautiful person, for His creatures, and to pray for the beauty of such a soul, that God may enrich her with inward graces, and that the outward and inward may correspond; to pray God, upon the sight of a deformed person, to give them wholeness of soul, and by and by to give them the beauty of the resurrection.'What an illustration of the praying spirit! Such an attitude represents prayer without ceasing; it reveals the habit of prayer in its unceasing supplication, in its uninterrupted communion, in its constant intercession. What an illustration, too, of purpose in prayer! Of how many of us can it be said that as we pass people in the street we pray for them, or that as we enter a home or a church we remember the residents or the congregation in prayer to God?
The explanation of our thoughtlessness or forgetfulness lies in the fact that prayer, with so many of us, is simply a form of selfishness; it means asking for something for ourselves--that and nothing more.
And from such an attitude we need to pray to be delivered. "
I really loved the last line of the excerpt (as well as the entire passage....or else I wouldn't have bothered posting it!) because of its thought provoking end to his thoughts on prayer. Hope you enjoyed :)
Posts
