I warm up with my mom and make sure I understand what the songs are about, and make sure I'm using the right technique. To be honest with you, I really don't practice a lot... Usually I say a prayer and ask the Lord to sing with me and help me and stand on the stage with me.

I had one request when I started doing the plays. My prayer was: God let me do well enough to be able to take care of my mother. I was able to do that 'til the day she died because of my audience. So, they've already done enough. All I ask for now is their continued support.

I studied the Bible seriously until I was young teenager. It was always part of our home education: talking about the Bible, arguing about the Bible, interpreting it. So I don't connect prayer or scriptures with any particular religion so it's not a contradiction in my life.

We need prayer to understand God's love for us. If we really mean to pray and want to pray we must be ready to do it now. These are only the first steps towards prayer but if we never make the first step with determination, we will not reach the last one: the presence of God

Our prayers at this time are prompted by the fact that the Governor of Illinois today is signing into Illinois law the redefinition of civil marriage, introducing not only an unprecedented novelty into our state law, but also institutionalizing an objectively sinful reality.

The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church, grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil.

It can happen that when we are at prayer some brothers come to see us. Then we have to choose either to interrupt our prayer or to sadden our brother by refusing to answer him. But love is greater than prayer. Prayer is one virtue among others, whereas love contains them all.

When you're really caught up in writing a poem, it can be a form of prayer. I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer. I feel it in different degrees and not with every poem. But in certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

True praying has the largest results for good; and poor praying, the least. We cannot do too much of real praying; we cannot do too little of the sham. We must learn anew the worth of prayer, enter anew the school of prayer. There is nothing which it takes more time to learn.

Gratitude is the praise we offer God: for teachers kind, benefactors never to be forgotten, for all who have advantaged me, by writings, sermons, converse, prayers, examples, for all these and all others which I know, which I know not, open, hidden, remembered, and forgotten.

Prayer from the depth and prayer from the surface are two prayers. One can utter what Christ has called 'vain repetitions', just repeating the prayer; one does not fix one's mind on the meaning of the prayer. If the depth of one's heart has heard the prayer, God has heard it.

In the domain of painting and statuary, the present-day credo of the worldly wise, especially in France, is this: ... I believe that art is, and can only be, the exact reproduction of nature... An avenging God has heard the prayers of this multitude; Daguerre was his messiah.

If you find yourself loving any pleasure more than your prayers, any book better than the Bible, any house better than the house of the Lord, any table better than the Lord's table, any persons better than Christ, or any indulgence better than the hope of heaven – be alarmed.

They were creating a program on contemplative prayer called Be Still. They asked me to be a part of this project that was designed to help Americans see the importance of spending time before God in stillness. I knew immediately that God wanted me to be a part of the project.

For me, prayer means launching out of the heart towards God; it means lifting up one's eyes, quite simply, to heaven, a cry of grateful love, from the crest of joy or the trough of despair; it's a vast, supernatural force which opens out my heart, and binds me close to Jesus.

Truth is not obtained cheaply. It demands much time given to prayer and study of the Scriptures, followed by practical application in our daily lives. It must take priority over the many forms of cheap entertainment offered by our secular culture. It is a lifetime commitment.

Intercessory prayer is exceedingly prevalent. What wonders it has wrought! The Word of God teems with its marvelous deeds. Believer, thou hast a mighty engine in thy hand, use it well, use it constantly, use it with faith, and thou shalt surely be a benefactor to thy brethren.

Pray for the love which allows you to see the good in your companion. Pray for the love that makes weaknesses and mistakes seem small. Pray for the love to make your companion's joy your own. Pray for the love to want to lessen the load and soften the sorrows of your companion

The purest form of prayer we can engage in is to feel peace: the kind of peace that comes when we surrender totally to what is, as is—in the knowledge and comfort that Spirit has it all handled and that it will all work out for the best if we just get ourselves out of the way.

Lizzie Harris's Stop Wanting is an unflinching book about a girlhood filled with violence, doubt, vulnerability, and loss. These gorgeously crafted and hauntingly memorable poems are a bleak place full of life, prayer, and the kind of answers only poems like these can provide.

Perpetual Adoration, Eucharistic Adoration offers to our people the opportunity to join those in religious life to pray for the salvation of the world, souls everywhere and peace on earth. We cannot underestimate the power of prayer and the difference it will make in our world

The men that will change the colleges and seminaries here represented are the men that will spend the most time alone with God... It takes time for the fires to burn. It takes time for God to draw near and for us to know that He is there. It takes time to assimilate His truth.

Wherever...thou shalt be, pray secretly within thyself. If thou shalt be far from a house of prayer, give not thyself trouble to seek for one, for thou thyself art a sanctuary designed for prayer. If thou shalt be in bed, or in any other place, pray there; thy temple is there.

Our Lord never referred to unanswered prayer. He taught that prayers are always answered: “Everyone who asks receives”. And He implied that prayers are answered rightly because of the heavenly Father's wisdom: “Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him”.

I have been challenged by the concept of meditation ... I decided recently to accept the invitation of a friend to experience the sheer silence of meditation-undirected prayer. ... I had before only sensed intellectually ... But by going deep into prayer I could almost feel it.

Once the vision of the fulfillment of your dream has been planted in your mind, bring it in to your prayer life. Each time you pray the picture to mind and meditate on it. Pray over it. See it happening. Destroy all the images of failure. Replace them with the image of success.

Today I will gratefully receive all the gifts that life has to offer me. I will receive the gifts of sunlight and the sound of birds singing and spring showers. I will also be open to receiving from others, whether it is in the form of a material gift, a compliment or a prayer.

When you are praying alone, and your spirit is dejected, and you are wearied and oppressed by your loneliness, remember then, as always, that God the Trinity looks upon you with eyes brighter than the sun; also all the angels, your own Guardian Angel, and all the Saints of God.

If you ask Zen people they will say; tea is not something that you pour with unawareness and drink like any other drink. It is not a drink, it is meditation; it is prayer. So they listen to the kettle creating a melody, and in that listening they become more silent, more alert.

Learn to pray. Pray often. Pray in your mind, in your heart. Pray on your knees. Prayer is your personal key to heaven. The lock is on your side of the veil. And I have learned to conclude all my prayers with ‘Thy will be done’ (Matthew 6:10; see also Luke 11:2; 3 Nephi 13:10).

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.

We must learn to measure ourselves, not by our knowledge about God, not by our gifts and responsibilities in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our hearts. Many of us, I suspect, have no idea how impoverished we are at this level. Let us ask the Lord to show us.

One must not think that a person who is suffering is not praying. He is offering up his sufferings to God, and many a time he is praying much more truly than one who goes away by himself and meditates his head off, and, if he has squeezed out a few tears, thinks that is prayer.

Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow-citizens of the United States at large.

The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.

Books on prayer are good, but not good enough. As books on cooking are good but hopeless unless there is food to work on, so with prayer. One can read a library of prayer books and not be one whit more powerful in prayer. We must learn to pray, and we must pray to learn to pray.

In a world where there is so much noise, so much bewilderment, there is a need for silent adoration of Jesus concealed in the Host. Be assiduous in the prayer of adoration and teach it to the faithful. It is a source of comfort and light, particularly to those who are suffering.

In the last years, I've been reading the Eastern fathers, the older mystical writings, a rich, deep, and truly traditional Christianity which most Western Christians know almost nothing about. It is very mystical and prayer centered Christianity, with a strong social conscience.

In a thousand words I can have the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Hippocratic Oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the Preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and almost all of the Boy Scout Oath. Now exactly what picture were you planning to trade for all that?

I respect the courts, but the Supreme Court is only that - the supreme of the courts. It is not the supreme being. It cannot overrule God. When it comes to prayer, when it comes to life, and when it comes to the sanctity of marriage, the court cannot change what God has created.

Praying is the same to the new creature as crying is to the natural. The child is not learned by art or example to cry, but instructed by nature; it comes into the world crying. Praying is not a lesson got by forms and rules of art, but flowing from principles of new life itself.

Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can, for He is the very source of the light you seek. He does love you, and He knows your fears. He hears your prayers. He is your Heavenly Father, and surely He matches with His own the tears His children shed.

Where do you run for help? When you are in trouble, what is your first instinct? Do you run to others or to God? Is it usually the counsel of another rather than the counsel found in waiting upon God in prayer? Why is this the way it is? Why do we run to man before we run to God?

Everything made so much sense. This is the beauty of the Qur'an; it asks you to reflect and reason....When I read the Qur'an further, it talked about prayer, kindness and charity. I was not a Muslim yet, but I felt the o­nly answer for me was the Qur'an and God had sent it to me.

"Alleluia" song is a street hymn in the sense that it's all about culture.It's almost a juxtaposition of the prayers of the world and the prayers of the culture and how we sometimes put an "amen" after crazy things. So it's really just that tension between madness and simplicity.

The privilege of prayer to me is one of the most cherished possessions, because faith and experience alike convince me that God himself sees and answers, and His answers I never venture to criticize. It is only my part to ask. If it were otherwise, I would not dare to pray at all.

Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home: the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home.

The most potent and acceptable prayer is the prayer that leaves the best effects. I don't mean it must immediately fill the soul with desire . . . The best effects are those that are followed up by actions-when the soul not only desires the honor of God, but really strives for it.

Real joy is becoming exceedingly rare among artists of any kind. And I have an idea that those who can and do communicate it are always people who have had a hard time. Then the joy has no smugness or self-righteousness in it, is inclusive not exclusive, and comes close to prayer.

This is my prayer for all of us — 'Lord, increase our faith.' Increase our faith to bridge the chasms of uncertainty and doubt. Grant us faith to look beyond the problems of the moment to the miracles of the future. Give us faith to do what is right and let the consequence follow.

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