A Quote by Evagrius Ponticus
Do not be troubled if you do not immediately receive from God what you ask Him; for He desires to do something even greater for you, while you cling to Him in prayer.
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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 degrading conception. The popular belief reduces God to a servant, our servant: doing our bidding, performing our pleasure, granting our desires. No, prayer is a coming to God, telling Him my need, committing my way unto the Lord, and leaving Him to deal with it as seemeth Him best.
Whether, therefore, we receive what we ask for, or do not receive it, let us still continue steadfast in prayer. For to fail in obtaining the desires of our heart, when God so wills it, is not worse than to receive it; for we know not as He does, what is profitable to us.
We have assurance that we shall be heard in what we pray, because we pray to that God that heareth prayer, and is the rewarder of all that come unto Him; and in His name, to whom God denieth nothing; and, therefore, howsoever we are not always answered at the present, or in the same kind that we desire, yet, sooner or later, we are sure to receive even above that we are able to ask or think, if we continue to sue unto Him according to His will.
My praying friend, continue to make known your desires to God in all things. ... Let Him decide whether you are to receive what you ask for or not.
God has not only made the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has actually given Him to us. It's up to us now to receive Him. But for you to receive from God, you will have to be ready to respond to Him by faith. Until you respond to God by faith, you do not receive from Him, because God is a faith-God.
Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend. Not that it is necessary in order to make known to God what we are, but in order to enable us to receive Him. Prayer does not bring God down to us, but brings us up to Him.
Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God's gift of Himself.
Ask and seek and you heart will grow big enough to receive Him and to keep Him as your own. Wherever God has put you, that is your vocation.
It is not what we do but how much love we put into it.
Prayer brings to us blessings which we need, and which only God can give, and which prayer can alone convey to us ... This service of prayer is not a mere rite, a ceremony through which we go, a sort of performance. Prayer is going to God for something needed and desired. Prayer is simply asking God to do for us what he has promised us he will do if we ask him ... Asking is man's part. Giving is God's part. The praying belongs to us. The answer belongs to God.
To me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle. The witch doctor tries to convince us that we have to ask God for help, to spell out to him what we need, even to bribe him with prayer or cash on the line.
Prayer involves transformed passions. In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God's thoughts after Him: to desire the things He desires, to love the things He loves, to will the things He wills.
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 desires flowing back to Him.
God loves to glorify himself by suspending his gifts and blessings on our asking him for them. We should never presume to receive from God apart from prayer what he's clearly told us in Scripture will be ours only through prayer.
"But if God is so good as you represent Him, and if He knows all that we need, and better far than we do ourselves, why should it be necessary to ask Him for anything?" I answer, "What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God's idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need - the need of Himself?"
Are you weak? Weary? Confused? Troubled? Pressured? How is your relationship with God? Is it held in its place of priority? I believe the greater the pressure, the greater your need for time alone with Him.
The Lord's Prayer "is truly the summary of the whole gospel." "Since the Lord...after handling over the practice of prayer, said elsewhere, 'Ask and you will receive,' and since everyone has petitions which are peculiar to his circumstances, the regular and appropriate prayer (the Lord's Prayer) is said first, as the foundation of further desires.
God is always present, always available. At whatever moment in which one turns to him the prayer is received, is heard, is authenticated, for it is God who gives our prayer its value and its character, not our interior dispositions, not our fervor, not our lucidity. The prayer which is pronounced for God and accepted by him becomes, by that very fact, a true prayer.
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