personal development on Conversational Prayer

Prayer at its highest is a two-way conversation - and for me the most important part is listening to God's replies.

Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.

Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue; God's voice is its most essential part. Listening to God's voice is the secret of the assurance that He will listen to mine.

Prayer is first of all listening to God. It's openness. God is always speaking; he's always doing something. Prayer is to enter into that activity... Convert your thoughts into prayer. As we a...

There's no greater lifestyle and no greater happiness than that of having a continual conversation with God.

Over the years, I have led hundreds of retreats that have at their center a few hours to be alone and quiet in listening prayer. At one such retreat, one participant shared a conversation she had wit...

The prevailing idea seems to be, that I come to God and ask Him for something that I want, and that I expect Him to give me that which I have asked. But this is a most dishonouring and degading concep...

Real prayer is communion with God, so that there will be common thoughts between His mind and ours. What is needed is for Him to fill our hearts with His thoughts, and then His desires will become our...

Prayer is descending with the mind into your heart, and there standing before the face of the Lord, ever present, all seeing, within you…It is only when our hearts appeal to God that our reading praye...

[T]he real purpose of prayer is not about convincing God to do what we want but about awakening to what God already is doing and doing that redemptive work with Him.

Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered toget...

How, then, shall we lay hold of that Life and Power, and live the life of prayer without ceasing? By quiet, persistent practice in turning all of our being, day and night, in prayer and inward worship...

On a walking pilgrimage to Assisi in Italy, the writer Patricia Hampl began to make a list in answer to the question, What is prayer? She wrote down a few words. Praise. Gratitude. Begging/pleading/cu...

The primary use of prayer, as the Psalter sees it, is not for expressing ourselves but in becoming ourselves, and we cannot do that alone. In praying the Psalms with others, then, we learn to become m...

God's Voice Speaking through the Frustration My first conscious experience of hearing the voice of Jesus occurred when I was a college student. It grew out of a period of genuine frustration. Bec...

The Lord’s Prayer is designed to help us make this change: a change of priority, not a change of content. This prayer doesn’t pretend that pain and hunger aren’t real. Some religions say that; Jesus d...

Some who attempt prayer never have the sense of anyone listening on the other end. They blame themselves for doing it wrong.... Prayer requires the faith to believe that God listens.

Prayer was never meant to be a merely personal exercise with personal benefits, but a discipline that reminds us how we’re personally responsible for others. This means that every time we pray, we sho...

In the middle of a prayer, whether praying silently or aloud, my mind would bounce from one thing to the next. Dear God in heaven, I pray that you heal my friend who has cancer. Work in her life now i...

God of grace, you ask us to pray without ceasing, yet we admit to you that we are easily distracted. Days and weeks can pass where we don’t acknowledge you. Neglecting our relationship with you, we de...

We confess, loving and gracious God, that we often find ourselves in a rut as we seek to live out our faith. We do not pray for your Spirit’s ingenuity or creativity. We close off our hearts from anyt...

I remember a story that R. A. Torrey told, growing out of a series of meetings he had held in Melbourne, Australia. He had been speaking on prayer. One day just before a noon meeting a note was placed...

God, you call us to prayer. Throughout the Scriptures, we read about your people praying. The Israelites cried out for you to rescue them from slavery. You sent them Moses. Hannah wept, asking you t...

The Lord’s Prayer, like all prayer, is part work and part rest, Perhaps the only work we do is getting ourselves there. Once we’ve gotten ourselves there—to prayer—whatever mains of productivity is Go...

Leaders—Called to Pray I don't know about you, but I've always had a hard time spending extended periods of time in prayer. Our lectionary author this week, Cody Sandahl, shares his own st...

God does not merely speak…he is present. Prayer is steeped in the awareness, often an awe-filled awareness, of the presence of God.

Lord–You speak, and things happen. At the beginning—you spoke and creation happened; and you keep on speaking, giving us promises we can count on, and admonitions to heed. When we need comfort—you spe...

Break our hearts, Jesus That we may weep as You weep Love as You love Break our hearts Jesus and raise our voices that we may speak and act so all may be safe so all may have opportunity so all may k...

Loving and grace-filled God, we confess that it is difficult to keep you first in our lives. There are so many urgent demands on us that we find it hard to focus ourselves on you. The culture around u...

Prayer is often a temptation to bank on a miracle of God instead of on a moral issue, i.e., it is much easier to ask God to do my work than it is to do it myself. Until we are disciplined properly, we...