Secret Sin Blocks Prayer

In his book Why Prayers Are Unanswered, John Lavender retells a story about Norman Vincent Peale.

When Peale was a boy, he found a big, black cigar, slipped ...

Faith Plus Works?

Among the remembered prayers of the very wise and holy St. Thomas More is this: "The things, good Lord, that we pray for, give us the grace to labor ...

A True High-Pressure Situation

Going to bat in the ninth is nothing compared to praying in an intensive care unit.

The Blessings of Spiritual Struggle

Blessed are you, if the struggle grows fierce against you at the time of prayer.

Praying Well

To pray is the greatest thing we can do, and to do it well, there must be calmness, time, and deliberation.

Love Your Enemy, Save Yourself

Jesus didn't teach us to love our enemies for their good. It is for our own good--to keep from becoming the enemy.

Carrying Our Weapon

Prayer is the wall of faith: her arms and missiles against the foe who keeps watch over us on all sides. And, so never we walk unarmed.

Praying the Ten Commandments

In "A Simple Way to Pray" (1535), Martin Luther writes:

If I have had time and opportunity to go through the Lord's Prayer, I do the same ...

Private Prayer, Public Prayer

A man who prays much in private will make short prayers in public.

Prayer and the Dipsy-Dumpster

Half the time the difficulty with daily prayer is not a lack of time, but assumptions about prayer that belong in the dipsy-dumpster. The other half of ...