Prayer is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him...who loves us, who is near to us.
Interpretation
Prayer is a means of experiencing God's presence rather than just seeking Him.
In this quote, Thomas Merton emphasizes that prayer serves not only as a method for individuals to seek God but more profoundly as an opportunity to find solace and rest in the divine love that surrounds them. It suggests that through prayer, individuals can experience closeness to God, recognizing His constant presence and love in their lives.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of faith, one might say, 'As Thomas Merton reminds us, prayer is not just a way to find God; it allows us to rest in His love.'
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Like a child exploring the attic of an old house on a rainy day, discovering a trunk full of treasure and then calling all his brothers and sisters to share the find, Richard J. 'Foster has 'found' the spiritual disciplines that the modern world has stored away and forgot, and has excitedly called us to celebrate them. For they are, as he shows us, the instruments of joy, the way into mature Christian spirituality and abundant life.
Dear God, I surrender this thought to you, for I would see the miracle that lies behind it. Amen.
Do you realize the weight of the one who has invited us to follow him? He is worthy of more than church attendance and casual association; he is worthy of total abandonment and supreme adoration.
Prayer is not logical, it is a mysterious moral working of the Holy Spirit.
Seek to be made holier every day; pray, strive, wrestle for the spirit, to make you like God. Be as much you can with God. I declare to you that I had rather be one hour with God than a thousand with the sweetest society on earth or in Heaven. All other joys are but streams; God is the fountain.
Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God's gift of Himself.
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