On Devotional Times: My Ten Favourite Sentences
Sometimes, a flash of insight can come to you in just a sentence, and that has happened to me frequently when it comes to devotional times. (It's what John Piper says about something he read in C. S. Lewis: "Books don't change people; paragraphs do. Sometimes even sentences do.") Of the many things I have read on the subject of devotional or "quiet" times, here are the ten sentences that have most helped me:
“The first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have my soul happy in the Lord.”
- George Müller
“Find out what helps you connect with God, and make a discipline out of it.”
- Pete Greig
“You made us for yourself,
and our hearts find no peace
until they find their rest in you.”
- Augustine
“How I spend this ordinary day in Christ is how I will spend my Christian life.”
- Tish Harrison Warren
“Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves. Digging is hard, but you might find diamonds.”
- John Piper
“Oddly enough, many people struggle to pray because they are focusing on praying, not on God.”
- Paul Miller
“We breathe in revelation. We breathe out response.”
- Matt Redman
“Have you realised that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?”
- Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“Sometimes my morning prayer simply begins like this:
Lord,
I’m tired,
and I’m grumpy,
but I’m here again.”
- Ray Lowe
“Open my eyes, that I may see
wondrous things in your law.”
- Psalm 119:18