God thank you for everything youve given us. For the time we have together. And for the miracle of Christmas. Thank you for the Atonement the chance to start all over again. Help us to always remember who we are and to trust that we are worthy to make it through our storms. Amen

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

Obedience is the opener of eyes.

Christmas is our annual reminder to look uppondering celestial stars to look outserving those in need and to look downglorifying our Lord in humble prayer.

What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better not new organizations or more and novel methods but men whom the Holy Ghost can use -- men of prayer men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods but through men. He does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans but men -- men of prayer.

Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother God is holy and sinless He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God But if we do we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution...Who can give us the certainty that in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.

This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if not in body. More solitude and earlier hours

Here are the two best prayers I know Help me help me help me and Thank you thank you thank you.

The practice of the presence of God though we begin it at special times of prayer is designed to spill out and over and into all times.

Its not that we start with beliefs and doctrine and then come up with worship practices that properly express these cognitive beliefs rather we begin with worship and articulated beliefs bubble up from there. Doctrines are the cognitive theoretical articulation of what we understand when we pray.