Lauren

“If you meant in your last letter that we can scrap the whole idea of petitionary prayer--prayer which, as you put it, calls upon God to "engineer" particular events in the objective world--and confine ourselves to acts of penitence and adoration, I disagree with you. It may be true that Christianity would be, intellectually, a far easier religion if it told us to do this. And I can understand the people who think it would also be a more high-minded religion. But remember the psalm: "Lord, I am not high minded." Or better still, remember the New Testament. The most unblushingly petitionary prayers are there recommended to us both by precept and example. Our Lord in Gethsemane made a petitionary prayer (and did not get what He asked for).”
― C. S. Lewis

“Well, the baby can teach us. What you’ve undertaken here in Cutter Gap in your schoolroom isn’t a state of perfection to be arrived at all of a sudden. It’s a walk, and a walk isn’t static but ever-changing. We Friends say that all discouragement is from an evil source and can only end in more evil. Wallowing in self-condemnation or feeling sorry for yourself is worse than falling on your face in the first place. So—thee fell into a temper! So Thee is human. Thank God for thy humanness.”
― Catherine Marshall, Christy: A Historical Novel of Faith, Love, and Courage in the Smoky Mountains

“But I wasn't brave of myself," said Diamond. "It was the wind that blew in my face that made me brave. Wasn't it now, North Wind?"
"Yes; I know that. You had to be taught what courage was. And you couldn't know what it was without feeling it; therefore, it was given you. But don't you feel as if you would try to be brave yourself next time?"
"Yes, I do. But trying is not much."
"Yes, it is—a very great deal, for it is a beginning. And a beginning is the greatest thing of all. To try to be brave is to be brave. The coward who tries to be brave is before the man who is brave because he is made so and never had to try."
"How kind you are, North Wind!"
"I am only just. All kindness is but justice. We owe it."
"I don't quite understand that."
"Never mind; you will someday. There is no hurry about understanding it now.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“Only the Holy Spirit can enable a fallen man to worship God acceptably. As far as that’s concerned, only the Holy Spirit can pray acceptably; only the Holy Spirit can do anything acceptably.”
― A.W. Tozer, Tozer on the Holy Spirit: A 365-Day Devotional