Prayer is the easiest and hardest of all things; the simplest and the sublimest; the weakest and the most powerful; its results lie outside the range of human possibilities-they are limited only by the omnipotence of God.
Edward Mckendree BoundsRead
God's willingness to answer our prayers exceeds our willingness to give good and necessary things to our children, just as far as God's ability, goodness and perfection exceed our infirmities and evil.
Interpretation
God's ability and willingness to provide for us surpasses our human capacity to care for our children.
This quote reflects on the fundamental nature of divine love and provision, suggesting that God's readiness to fulfill our needs is far greater than our own efforts to provide for our loved ones. It emphasizes the idea that, despite our human flaws and imperfections, the divine is always willing to bestow goodness and necessary gifts, highlighting an important aspect of faith and reliance on higher powers in times of need.
In practice
In a sermon about divine providence, you might quote this to illustrate God's love.
Prayer is the easiest and hardest of all things; the simplest and the sublimest; the weakest and the most powerful; its results lie outside the range of human possibilities-they are limited only by the omnipotence of God.
Leaders in the realm of religious activity are to be judged by their praying habits and not by their money or social position. Those who must be placed in the forefront of the Church's business must be, first of all, men who know how to pray.
No erudition, no purity of diction, no width of mental outlook, no flowers of eloquence, no grace of person can atone for lack of fire. Prayer ascends by fire. Flame gives prayer access as well as wings, acceptance as well as energy. There is no incense without fire; no prayer without flame.
Importunity is a condition of prayer. We are to press the matter, not with vain repetitions, but with urgent repetitions. We repeat, not to count the times, but to gain the prayer. We cannot quit praying because heart and soul are in it. We pray "with all perseverance." We hang to our prayers because by them we live. We press our pleas because we must have them, or die.
We may excuse the spiritual poverty of our preaching in many ways, but the true secret will be found in the lack of urgent prayer for God's presence in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Faith, and hope, and patience and all the strong, beautiful, vital forces of piety are withered and dead in a prayerless life. The life of the individual believer, his personal salvation, and personal Christian graces have their being, bloom, and fruitage in prayer.
Human beings can only make sense of the world through the lens they were socialized to make sense of it through.
We have to ask ourselves, 'What kind of world is it where a baby-food executive substitutes artificial flavoring and sugar for apple juice? What kind of businesses have we created when we even lie to infants?'
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all.
Many of us spend our entire lives in the same bubble - we surround ourselves with people who share our opinions, speak the way we speak, and look the way we look. We fear leaving those familiar surroundings, which is natural, but through exploration of the unfamiliar we stop focusing on the labels that define WHAT we are and discover WHO we are.
Perhaps the belief in God is the belief that the universe is intelligible, but not to us.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.