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" JESUS HAS A WAY of making us nervous, especially when he talks about prayer. After the Last Supper he says some astounding things. While he and the disciples are still sitting around the table, he tells them, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” Then in his next breath, he underlines his point: “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13- 14). Later that night as Jesus and his disciples head to Gethsemane, they walk through the darkened streets of Jerusalem. Possibly as they pass the gate of the temple with its golden vine, he tells his followers that he is the true vine, the source of life. “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7). Our fruit bearing will express itself in answered prayer—“so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16). As Jesus comes to the end of his final teaching with his disciples, he drives home his point: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. . . . Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:23-24). Six different times Jesus says, “Ask and I will give it to you. "
― Paul E. Miller , A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
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" I am not kidding—this woman sat in our office for three-and-a-half hours without a single question or complaint. And this is Philadelphia! She’d taken the bus, so I offered to drive her home. Depressed and frustrated, I blurted out, “Does Jesus make a difference in your life?” (I thought she might be Catholic.) Please understand, I was not witnessing—I wanted to be witnessed to. She replied, “Jesus is everything to me. I talk to him all the time.” I was floored, partly by the freshness and simplicity of her faith but mainly by the unusual patience that displayed her faith. My frantic busyness was a sharp contrast to her quiet waiting in prayer. She reflected the spirit of prayer. I reflected the spirit of human self-sufficiency. I’d begun the day depressed, partly struggling with the relevance of Jesus. Now I was overwhelmed by the irony of my unbelief. Jesus had been sitting in our waiting room, right in front of me, as obvious as the daylight. I had walked by him all day. I had wondered if Jesus was around, and he had been silently waiting all day, saying nothing. It was a stunning display of patience. Cynicism looks in the wrong direction. It looks for the cracks in Christianity instead of looking for the presence of Jesus. It is an orientation of the heart. The sixth cure for cynicism, then, is this: develop an eye for Jesus. "
― Paul E. Miller , A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
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" Instead of focusing on other people’s lack of integrity, on their split personalities, we need to focus on how Jesus is reshaping the church to be more like himself. We need to view the body of Christ with grace. Paul delights in the influence of Jesus on people’s lives. It is at the heart of his praying. He doesn’t have a generalized spirit of thanksgiving; he is thankful for “you.” Even with the messed-up Corinthian church, Paul is thankful: “I give thanks to my God always for you” (1 Corinthians 1:4). Then he addresses their permitting of incest, suing one another in court, and getting drunk at the Lord’s Supper! Because he keeps his eye on the present work of Jesus, Paul is not overcome by evil but overcomes evil with good. Goodness infests Paul’s prayer life. He is living out the gospel. Even as God has extended grace to Paul, so Paul extends grace to the Corinthians. He looks at the church through rose-colored glasses, tinted with the blood of his Savior. Obviously, Christians are not better than non-Christians. In fact, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 that the raw material of believers is worse than that of unbelievers. The Corinthians themselves prove that! Christians aren’t superior, but our Savior is. He makes the difference. He is alive and well in his church. "
― Paul E. Miller , A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
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" There is no such thing as a lament-free life. In fact, if your life is lament-free, you aren’t loving well. To love is to lament, to let your heart be broken by something. If you don’t lament over the broken things in your world, then your heart shuts down. Your living, vital relationship with God dies a slow death because you open the door to unseen doubt and become quietly cynical. Cynicism moves you away from God; laments push you into his presence. So, oddly enough, not lamenting leads to unbelief. Reality wins, and hope dies. Put another way, the reality of a broken world triumphs over the new reality of a redeemed world. You miss resurrection and get stuck in death. "
― Paul E. Miller , A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
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" A Stoic would consider a lament inappropriate: too emotional, too aggressive. The Israelites lamented because they longed for a better world, the way the world is supposed to be. They believed in a covenant-keeping God, one who keeps his word. That’s what makes laments so passionate, so in-your-face. When you lament, you live simultaneously in the past, present, and future. A lament connects God’s past promise with my present chaos, hoping for a better future. So on the cross Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He connects the utter chaos of his life with the love of his Father. That connection is nuclear. "
― Paul E. Miller , A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World