Prayer

You have 

wisdom and knowledge 

that is beyond 

our ability, 

insight and understanding 

beyond our grasp, 

love and mercy 

greater than our possibility 

of even refusing it. 

You see far

into a future 

that will outlast us all. 

So we cannot ask 

what You are doing. 

Nor would it do 

any good, really, 

to ask why, 

or what if... . 

All we can say, really... is 

please.

O. Hallesby: Prayer

I need not exert myself and try to force myself to believe, or try to chase doubt out of my heart. Both are equally useless. It begins to dawn on me that I can bring everything to Jesus, no matter how difficult it is; and I need not be frightened away by my doubts or my weak faith, but only tell Jesus how weak my faith is. I have let Jesus into my heart. And He will fulfill my heart’s desire. —O. Hallesby in Prayer.

Morning Prayer

I thank you for the noise

my dew-wetted shoes  

make on the linoleum.  



I thank you for the smell 

of coffee  

and the promise therein.  



I thank you for my soul  

both content 

and restless.  



All proof of life.  



WS

Prayer of a Man Resting

 The twilight closes round me
  My head is bowed before the Universe
  I thank thee, O Lord, for a child I knew seven years ago
  And whom I have never seen since.

  Praised be God for all sides of life, for friends, lovers, art,
  literature, knowledge, humour, politics,
and for the little red cloud
  away there in the west—
                                                             —G. K. Chesterton

The Prayer of a Man Walking

I thank thee, O Lord, for the stones in the street
I thank thee for the hay-carts yonder and for the
Houses built and half-built
That fly past me as I stride.
But most of all for the great wind in my nostrils
As if thine own nostrils were close.
                     —G. K. Chesterton

On giving thanks

You say grace before meals. All right. 

But I say grace before the concert and the opera, 

And grace before the play and pantomime, 

And grace before I open a book, 

And grace before sketching, painting, 

Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing 

And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.  

--G. K. Chesterton

When we are most likely to pray

The illusion of total intelligibility, the indifference to the mystery that is everywhere, the foolishness of self-reliance are serious obstacles along the way. It is in moments of our being faced with the mystery of living and dying, of knowing and not knowing, of love and the inability to love—that we pray. —Abraham Joshua Heschel, in Man's Quest For God