Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.
Martin LutherRead
Now if I believe in God's Son and remember that He became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before. Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, as I reflect that he is Lord over all things. ...God writes the Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the idea that faith enhances our appreciation of the beauty in the world around us.
Martin Luther suggests that belief in God and recognizing His divine nature allows individuals to see the world through a lens of beauty and wonder. By understanding God’s relationship with creation—believing that He is the Lord over all things—one can find deeper appreciation for nature's splendor, as it reflects God's artistry and presence in everyday life.
In practice
In a sermon highlighting the beauty of creation and faith.
Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.
It is the part of a Christian to take care of his own body for the very purpose that, by its soundness and wellbeing, he may be enabled to labour, and to acquire and preserve property, for the aid of those who are in want, that thus the stronger member may serve the weaker member, and we may be children of God, and busy for one another, bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfiling the law of Christ.
Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.
We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
In a mouse we admire God's creation and craft work. The same may be said about flies.
A man would have to be an idiot to write a book of laws for an apple tree telling it to bear apples and not thorns, seeing that the apple-tree will do it naturally and far better than any laws or teaching can prescribe.
I cannot be angry at God, in whom I do not believe.
We always plan too much and always think too little.
Hell and Heaven are near man, yes, in him; and every man after death goes to that Hell or heaven in which he was, or to his spirit, during his abode in the world.
Every being has the need not only to be but to affirm his own being. This is especially significant for the human organism, for it is gifted with, or condemned to, self-consciousness.
I learned not to fear infinity, The far field, the windy cliffs of forever, The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow, The wheel turning away from itself, The sprawl of the wave, The on-coming water.
It's only possible to see people when one is able to see the world as others see it.
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