• How God Speaks to Us in Prayer.
    Jun 30 2022

    God can get through to us what God wants to get through, at any time. You can of course seem to close off from God, or turn away in disbelief, anger or despair. Yet if God wants to get your attention, God will. That being said, it is important to understand how God communicates with us during prayer, usually in subtle and unexpected ways.

    There are seven essential entryways in us through which God may stealthily make God’s presence and will known during prayer. The better you understand these, the more readily your apparent prayer monologue can be grasped as an actual prayer dialogue, as a “with” rather than “to” God. It is vital to patiently wait upon, and listen for the Lord around these entryways. And also to take on faith that God addresses you daily, in a variety of elusive ways, though most importantly in prayer.

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    6 mins
  • What Prayer Is
    Jun 27 2022

    So what exactly is prayer? Prayer is communication with God in all its forms. This includes intimate as well as seemingly distant communication, from monologues to dialogues, from written texts to mystical touch, from speech to silent communion. Prayer establishes the bridge between God and humanity. It is as vital to your personal well-being to develop a flourishing prayer life, as it is to learn how to communicate love to human loved ones.

    My purpose in these prayer podcasts is to teach you how to pray to God, so that you can actually come to sense the presence of God, the subtle but significant response of God to your prayer. What I will offer you are time tested ways of praying that will at some point bring you into direct connection with God. Everything is at stake in the long overdue return to the focus on knowing God directly. Such knowledge permeated the Bible and the medieval mystics. I want you to encounter the ultimate beauty, goodness and truth: God.

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    6 mins
  • Abiding Prayer
    Dec 3 2022

    God has taught me a contemplative form of prayer which I practice every morning, and during brief periods throughout the day. I call it “Abiding Prayer,” and it is based Jesus’ directing us to: “Abide in me as I abide in you . . . Abide in my love” (John 15:4,9). Abiding prayer is less something you do, and more something you permit to happen. That means, Abiding Prayer is God’s prayer in and with you, built on Christ’s own insistent directive.

    The focus of Abiding Prayer is on Christ and entering into a heart-to-heart mutual life with Christ during the prayer itself. Abiding Prayer offers a pathway toward attaining what Christ fervently prays for all disciples: “that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one” (John 17:22-23).

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    6 mins
  • Romans 5:1-5: The Hope of the Holy Spirit
    Dec 12 2024

    Let the first step on your path to God be that of faith. Take the proverbial leap of faith that by your faith, you have obtained peace and right standing with God through Jesus Christ. Take hold of that faith, and let it take hold of you.

    Once that faith is in place, strengthened by the surrounding grace of God, you will be ready to face unshaken, whatever may come in your service to God and love. Paul puts forward what to expect, in one of the most important promise passages in the Bible:

    Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5:1-5).

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    6 mins
  • Breath Prayer for Letting God and Letting Go
    Nov 20 2024

    When asked the question about where God is, an ancient sage said simply, “God is wherever we let God in.” There is great truth here. We actually have to invite God in, rather than expect that God will do what we want without our asking or awareness. Who among us would enter into the home of a friend without first knocking and waiting for them to open the door?

    When Jesus sent seventy disciples into the countryside to prepare the people for his coming, he said, “Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house” (Luke 10:5-7).

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    6 mins
  • Prayer Expectations
    Oct 3 2024

    It is important to be aware of your expectations about prayer. It is also important to beware of them. We all have expectations about a many things, from the weather to the behavior of loved ones. Much of our daily life is preceded by and lived through the prism of, and silently evaluated by, our expectations. It has been said that, “Relationships go awry when you either don’t get what you expected, or what you get, you did not expect.”

    This is certainly the case regarding your relationship with God, including your prayer-life. As you have developed an attitude toward God over time, so also have you developed expectations regarding what might happen during and as a consequence of prayer.

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    7 mins
  • Praying Isaiah 30:15: Returning to God
    Sep 7 2024

    A single verse from Isaiah has touched my life deeply over the years. Whenever I pray through it, these anointed words have not failed to quiet and strengthen my soul:

    For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isa 30:15).

    It is never too late to return to God. I have witnessed persons returning to God after years of seeming alienation, for whatever reason. Perhaps it was due to suffering, and not believing that God was there, that God could or would save them from their painful state of helplessness and aloneness. Yet this single verse offers an extraordinary promise from the God of Israel, which God alone can fulfill.

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    9 mins
  • John 3:1-8 You Must Be Born from Above
    Aug 15 2024

    Among the most profound teaching of Jesus occurs in John 3:1-8:

    Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."

    Perhaps the best analogy for being born from above or again is that of falling in love. Falling in love is a life-changing experience, built on the addition of the “other” and what that relationship brings to your life. All that you are falls in love with all that your partner is. Like the John Legend song says, “All of me, loves all of you.” The difference between reading a romance novel and actually meeting and falling in love is analogous to the difference between being “once born” and “born from above.” Yet how can you fall in love with someone you have never met? And how can the once born understand the twice born?

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    8 mins