Stop and say something good about yourself Believe what you have just said Pray for what you have just believed Have faith for what you just prayed for Work out that faith ...and surely goodness and mercy shall follow you

You will find it hard to hear from God until you let go your rights and your agenda.

Lord please restore to us the comfort of merit and demerit. Show us that there is at least something we can do. Tell us that at the end of the day there will at least be one redeeming card of our very own. Lord if it is not too much to ask send us to bed with a few shreds of self-respect upon which we can congratulate ourselves. But whatever you do do not preach grace. Give us something to do anything but spare us the indignity of this indiscriminate acceptance.

It is no use to ask God with factitious earnestness for A when our whole mind is in reality filled with the desire for B. We must lay before Him what is in us not what ought to be in us.

To think of our prayers as just causes would suggest that the whole importance of petitionary prayer lay in the achievement of the thing asked for. But really for our spiritual life as a whole the being taken into account or considered matters more than the being granted. Religious people dont talk about the results of prayer they talk of its being answered or heard.... We can bear to be refused but not to be ignored. In other words our faith can survive many refusals if they really are refusals and not mere disregards. The apparent stone will be bread to us if we believe that a Fathers hand put it into ours in mercy or in justice or even in rebuke.

Our vision of the heavenly realm...can sustain us through the most difficult of days and circumstances. It births hope amidst hardship and nurtures faith amidst opposition.

He who neglects to pray alone and in private however assiduously he frequents public meetings there gives his prayers to the wind.

So what do you do when you are stuckThe first thing I do when I am stuck is pray. But Im not talking about a quick Help me Lord Sundays a comin prayer. When I get stuck I get up from my desk to head for my closet. Literally. If Im at the office I go over to a corner that I have deemed my closet away from home. I get on my knees and remind God that this was not my idea it was HisNone of this is new information to GodThen I ask God to show me if there is something He wants to say to prepare me for what He wants me to communicate to our congregation. I surrender my ideas my outline and my topic. Then I just stay in that quiet place until God quiets my heartMany times I will have a breakthrough thought or idea that brings clarity to my message. . .Like you I am simply a mouthpiece. Getting stuck is one way God keeps me ever conscious of that fact.

Lord whatsoever this day may bring Thy name be praised. Be gracious unto me and help me. Grant me strength to bear whatsoever Thou dost send And let not fear overrule me. I trust Thy grace and commit my life wholly into Thy Hands. Whether I live or whether I die I am with Thee and Thou are with me Lord I wait for Thy salvation and for the coming of Thy Kingdom. Amen.

The difficulties of life do not have to be unbearable. It is the way we look at them - through faith or unbelief - that makes them seem so. We must be convinced that our Father is full of love for us and that He only permits trials to come our way for our own good.Let us occupy ourselves entirely in knowing God. The more we know Him the more we will desire to know Him. As love increases with knowledge the more we know God the more we will truly love Him. We will learn to love Him equally in times of distress or in times of great joy.