Many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that many people treat prayer superficially, seeking attention without a genuine desire for connection.
D. A. Carson's quote reflects on the nature of prayer and its lack of sincerity among many individuals. It draws an analogy between the careless act of ringing a doorbell and fleeing, and the way some people approach prayer—often engaging in it for show or out of obligation rather than seeking a true relationship with the divine. This critique challenges the reader to consider the authenticity of their own spiritual practice.
In practice
During a sermon about the importance of genuine prayer, this quote can emphasize a more authentic relationship with God.
Both God's love and God's wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the old covenant to the new, from the Old Testament to the New. These themes barrel along through redemptive history, unresolved, until they come to a resounding climax - in the cross.
It is a cheap zeal that reserves its passions to combat only the sins and temptations of others.
There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering.
The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it.
Failure to believe stems from moral failure to recognize the truth, not from want of evidence, but from willful neglect or distortion of the evidence.
Imagination is a God-given gift; but if it is fed dirt by the eye, it will be dirty. All sin, not least sexual sin, begins with the imagination. Therefore what feeds the imagination is of maximum importance in the pursuit of kingdom righteousness.
To a longer and worse life, a shorter and better is by all means to be preferred.
If everyone in the world sat quietly at the same time, closed their eyes and concentrated as hard as they could on peace and goodwill, all the killing and cruelty in the world would continue. And probably increase.
Thinking of the stars night after night I begin to realize 'The stars are words' and all the innumerable worlds in the Milky Way are words, and so is this world too. And I realize that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it’s all in my mind.
The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.
Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance.
Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people. And falsehoods the truths of other people. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself. To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
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