Prayer seems to me
just a mingling of hope and desire and love and confidence. It is more like
talking over your plans and desires with God. It all depends upon whether
you say, 'My will be done,' which is the wrong sort of prayer, or 'Thy will
be done,' which is the right sort of prayer, and infinitely harder. I don't
mind telling you this, that my prayers are an attempt to put myself in
touch with the Spirit of God. I believe in God; I believe that He is trying
very hard to bring men and women to live in a certain way--the right,
joyful, beautiful way. He sees it clearly enough; but we are so tangled up
with material things that we don't see it clearly--we don't see where our
happiness lies; we mistake all kinds of things--pleasures, schemes,
successes, comforts, desires--for happiness; and prayer seems to me like
opening a sluice and letting a clear stream gush through. That's why I
believe one must set oneself to it. The sluice is not always open--we are
lazy, cowardly, timid; or again, we are confident, self-satisfied, proud of
our own inventiveness and resourcefulness. I don't know what the will is or
what its limitations are; but I believe it has a degree of liberty, and it
can exercise that liberty in welcoming God. Of course, if we think of God
as drearily moral, harsh, full of anger and disapproval, we are not likely
to welcome Him; but if we feel Him full of eagerness and sympathy, of
'comfort, light, and fire of love,' as the old hymn says, then we desire
His company.
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