The key

Prayer is simply the key to everything we need to do and be in life. Tim Keller.

Proper end

It is proper always to end prayers with praises. Let us expect more, and ask for more, encouraged by what Christ has already done for our souls, being assured that the conversion of sinners, and the comfort of believers, will be to his glory, for ever and ever. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

Ever Present

To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there stand before the face of the Lord, ever present, all seeing, within you.

-Theophan the Recluse, one of the early church fathers

Break the power

Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, and loneliness.
         — Dallas Willard

What the world needs now...is love, yes, but actually solitude would be a good candidate. HT to http://www.prayerreach.org/author Monty who shared this quote in a Free course on prayer. 

Spreading fear

Living, living in an age of fear.

There is terror in my eyes.

There is terror in their hands.

Living in fear and threats;

Intimidation,

Rumors,

Uncertainty,

Questioning “should I go out?”

Wondering “where is safe?”

We see the soul of the city in these pillars of marble.

The generations of people that stood

Looking up,

up,

to the columns

Stretching hands pas ceramic tiles.

Gasping at the beauty, the soaring balconies, the sweeping calligraphy.

Stunning.

Remarkable.

One of a kind.  

Sizable, they say,

Three miles away we heard the explosion,

When I got there it had been cornered off,

Shop owners picking up shrapnel.

The cities on edge,

When will it stop? How can we fight it?

Will they be found? Will they be caught?
how do you punish an unnamed evil, all around?

Hopeless, it seems,

despair, inevitable

Rounding up the usual suspects

The groups of people who rule by practicing ideology, spreading fear,

Spreading death,

Oh what power their bombs have, 

Oh what power to steal and kill and destroy.

Leading

 “Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading.” Oswald Chambers

When you remember me

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”  ― Frederick Buechner

John 6:47 I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.

“When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.”
― Frederick Buechner

John 6: 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.

38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

John 6:68-69, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."