The Transforming Power of Prayer
In the book Prayer, by Philip Yancey, a quote from C.S.Lewis:
"We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us."
"To put it another way," Yancey says, "We trust God with what God already knows."
As I come before God--the clean breeze of the Holy Spirit blowing, grain by grain the sand of illusion from my heart--he helps me see what he already knows.
He takes me deeper, layer by layer, shifting my view of circumstances and situations. "Did I really not see that?" How differently things--"this thing"--seem today, to when I first came before him, burning with "rightness," to pour out my soul on the page before me.
And the process may not yet be complete. I must stay here--maybe over many days, holding my heart up to him--until I see as he does--until I see what he already knows.
Psalm 119:104 (New International Version)
104 I gain understanding from your precepts;
therefore I hate every wrong path.
"We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us."
"To put it another way," Yancey says, "We trust God with what God already knows."
As I come before God--the clean breeze of the Holy Spirit blowing, grain by grain the sand of illusion from my heart--he helps me see what he already knows.
He takes me deeper, layer by layer, shifting my view of circumstances and situations. "Did I really not see that?" How differently things--"this thing"--seem today, to when I first came before him, burning with "rightness," to pour out my soul on the page before me.
And the process may not yet be complete. I must stay here--maybe over many days, holding my heart up to him--until I see as he does--until I see what he already knows.
Psalm 119:104 (New International Version)
104 I gain understanding from your precepts;
therefore I hate every wrong path.
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