Journey through Lent: The Eleventh Step
Reality in Prayer by Samuel M. Shoemaker (Cincinnati: Forward Movement Publications, 1967) was “Published originally by the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer, when Dr. Shoemaker was Rector of Calvary Church, Pittsburgh” [1928-1952].
Forward Movement Publications has kindly given me permission to publish this pamphlet on the condition that the text is unaltered. If Samuel Shoemaker were writing today, I am sure he would use inclusive language. I am prevented from altering the text as I type it, but you are not prevented from altering the text as you read it!
This is the first installment.
PRAYER
Someone has said that it is more important to talk to God than to talk about God. By the same token, it is better to pray than to talk about prayer. The whole field of prayer is one of such importance, such fascination, and we are all of us such beginners and children about it, that we must begin praying now that the Holy Spirit will guide our words and our thoughts, and give something better than we can either desire or deserve.
DIFFICULTIES WITH PRAYER
Let us face it at the outset, there are great difficulties about prayer. The longer we live the greater does the universe seem to become, and the more impersonal the forces that influence our life. All appears to move like a vast, well-oiled machine. Great scientists seem to be the people who best understand how it all moves and works. Add to this that amazing phenomenon, the silence of God. We may have faith and believe that he expresses himself in this vast and law-abiding cosmos, that the universe is in a sense his garment. But the only way in which he really speaks is in the hearts of men. We believe that in our Lord Jesus Christ he manifested himself, all of his nature that we can ever take in, all that can ever mean anything to us. God speaks in him, in his life and words. God has spoken through his inspired followers and speaks today. But it takes some faith to accept what the old hymn calls "the silence of eternity, interpreted by love."
To be continued.
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