Prayer is the easiest and hardest of all things; the simplest and the sublimest; the weakest and the most powerful; its results lie outside the range of human possibilities-they are limited only by the omnipotence of God.
Edward Mckendree BoundsRead
God's willingness to answer our prayers exceeds our willingness to give good and necessary things to our children, just as far as God's ability, goodness and perfection exceed our infirmities and evil.
Interpretation
God's ability and willingness to provide for us surpasses our human capacity to care for our children.
This quote reflects on the fundamental nature of divine love and provision, suggesting that God's readiness to fulfill our needs is far greater than our own efforts to provide for our loved ones. It emphasizes the idea that, despite our human flaws and imperfections, the divine is always willing to bestow goodness and necessary gifts, highlighting an important aspect of faith and reliance on higher powers in times of need.
In practice
In a sermon about divine providence, you might quote this to illustrate God's love.
Prayer is the easiest and hardest of all things; the simplest and the sublimest; the weakest and the most powerful; its results lie outside the range of human possibilities-they are limited only by the omnipotence of God.
Leaders in the realm of religious activity are to be judged by their praying habits and not by their money or social position. Those who must be placed in the forefront of the Church's business must be, first of all, men who know how to pray.
No erudition, no purity of diction, no width of mental outlook, no flowers of eloquence, no grace of person can atone for lack of fire. Prayer ascends by fire. Flame gives prayer access as well as wings, acceptance as well as energy. There is no incense without fire; no prayer without flame.
Importunity is a condition of prayer. We are to press the matter, not with vain repetitions, but with urgent repetitions. We repeat, not to count the times, but to gain the prayer. We cannot quit praying because heart and soul are in it. We pray "with all perseverance." We hang to our prayers because by them we live. We press our pleas because we must have them, or die.
We may excuse the spiritual poverty of our preaching in many ways, but the true secret will be found in the lack of urgent prayer for God's presence in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Faith, and hope, and patience and all the strong, beautiful, vital forces of piety are withered and dead in a prayerless life. The life of the individual believer, his personal salvation, and personal Christian graces have their being, bloom, and fruitage in prayer.
No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself.
Total oblivion is the fate of almost everything in this world. I'm very likely to suffer that same fate; my work will probably not be remembered, and if any of it is, if any of those novels is fated to be one of those novels that is still being read 50 or 100 years after it was written, I've probably already written it.
Why would the disciples invent a God whose holiness was more terrifying than the forces of nature that provoked them to invent a god in the first place?
Life is a mess. And theology must be lived out in the midst of that mess.
The fragrance of sandalwood and rosebay does not travel far. But the fragrance of virtue rises to the heavens.
Celebration is not because some desire is fulfilled - because no desire is ever fulfilled. Desire as such cannot be fulfilled. Desire is only a way to avoid the present moment. Desire creates the future and takes you far away. Desire is a drug; it keeps you stoned, it does not allow you to see the reality - that which is herenow.
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