Parker Palmer: “The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings. If we refuse to hold them in the hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves l

The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The assumption of spirituality is that always God is doing something before I know it. So the task is not to get God to do something I think needs to be done, but to become aware of what God is doing so that I can respond to it and participate and take delight in it. Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor

Where does my will stop and God’s begin? How do I ask in a way that’s in line with God’s eternal perspective? What’s worth praying about, and what’s just life? And at the end of the day, does Jesus really care about parking spaces?

And just as old couples grow more like each other through years of companionship, we grow more like Jesus over hours of conversation, years of companionship.

Spiritual maturity means more confession, not less. Maturity is discovering the depths of my personal brand of fallenness and the depths to which God’s grace has really penetrated, even without me knowing it.

Charles Spurgeon points out, this rule even applies to Jesus himself: “Remember, asking is the rule of the kingdom . . . Remember this text, JEHOVAH says to His own Son, ‘Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance . . .’ [Psalm 2:8, quoted by Spurgeon in the KJV in his sermon]. If the royal and divine Son of God cannot be exempted from th

He never backed down or qualified his statement. In fact, he kept saying this kind of thing. Here’s a sampling of what Jesus had to say on the subject of prayer: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (Luke 11:9) Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have r

Intercession, stated as simply as possible, brings forth the image of Jesus praying for us, individually by name. And as he does, he wedges us tightly between forgiveness and glory, enabling a deep inner rest sheltered by security, hope, and delight.