Today's Insight - August 18, 2015
Praying to Your Friend
by Charles R. Swindoll
Francois Fenelon, a seventeenth-century Roman Catholic Frenchman, said this about prayer:
Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's heart, its pleasures and its pain, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself and others.
If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject. It is continually being renewed. People who have no secrets from each other never want for subject of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back; neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration they say just what they think.
Blessed are they who attain to familiar, unreserved intercourse with God.
Blessed are they who attain to familiar, unreserved conversations with God. —Chuck Swindoll Tweet This
Excerpted from Day by Day with Charles Swindoll, Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. (Thomas Nelson Publishers). All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.
In Appreciation of Your Gift . . .
The Prayers of Charles R. Swindoll: Volume 1, Devotional Prayers on 31 Themes
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Many of us find our prayers insufficient to express our joys and sorrows. But this practical 95-page hardcover resource of 31 pastoral prayers from beloved Bible-teacher Chuck Swindoll will encourage you in your pain, help you celebrate in your joy, and free you to express profound truths.
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