The Practice of Prayer quotes by Morgan

The Practice of Prayer by Rev. G. Campbell Morgan teaches us about Christian prayer from a man who has studied and taught the Bible by the power of the Holy Spirit for many years in the early 20th Century in England and America. The ideas in this book capture my heart and mind and spirit. Please read these quotes, and listen to God speaking to you through this preacher of God's word.

"God has been reached always through His Son, Jesus Christ. Not that men have always understood this, not that we perfectly understand it to-day, but the fact remains that fallen man has always found his way to God in prayer through the mystery of the mediation of Christ."

Speaking about John 1:18 regarding the bosom of the Father, Morgan explains:
"I am bruised and broken upon life's highway but there is no help for me in the inscrutable might and mind of which I am conscious. But out of the infinite spaces there comes to me a great love song. Out of the bosom of the Father there comes a message of tenderness and compassion. Immediately, bruised and broken as I am, I want to pray. I desire to speak out of my sense of sin and sorrow to the heart behind force and intelligence concerning my need. Agony can sob itself upon a heart. Impotence can trust love. A sinner can turn his face back towards a Father....When my finite heart finds the infinite heart of God I am able to trust my finite strength to His infinite strength, and my finite mind to His infinite intelligence. This then is the first fact in the platform of prayer, that the God of the universe has a bosom, a heart, and that the Son has spoken to men out of it."

"It is when I stand in the presence of God as love that I realize for the first time the real meaning of sin, and I am silent."

"Sanctification is the imparting of Christ to me, grace for grace. That is to say, every grace which is in Him, is in Him for me, and my responsibility is that I appropriate day by day what He communicates in order that He may reproduce Himself in me. When in order that I may be more perfectly conformed to His image, the indwelling Christ calls me to some new duty, some new sacrifice, some new enterprise, I must answer with ready consent. If I do, prayer prevails. If I refuse, prayer becomes impossible."

"In the matter of prayer this is of supreme importance. To pray with prevailing prayer, there must be the vision of the morning breaking in the Eastern sky. It is the man who sees the coming glory who knows what it is to put blood and sacrifice into the business of establishing that Kingdom here. In order to pray prevailingly, I must live in the power of the hope that maketh not ashamed, having my face ever lifted towards the light while I yet look at the sorrow around me, and serve diligently the will of my King."

"The indwelling Spirit knows the will of God and interprets it to the soul in whom He abides. This He does by unveiling Christ, who is the revelation of the will of God to me."

"The frailest bird dying of summer heat or winter cold is not alone. It dies in the company of God."

"Love for the oppressed create anger with the oppressor for evermore....It is the wrath of the Lamb which is terrible, the wrath of One whose very heart and nature are love and gentleness. Wrath kindled by love is the fiercest flame that burns."

"It is the hungry man the devil attacks. If that be true physically, it is preeminently true spiritually. My brother see to it that when morning breaks you go to God for sustenance for your spiritual life. That will make you strong against the allurements of the devil."

"There is nothing God loves and the devil hates more than a man who can forgive."

Highlights

My neglect of this blog forces me to list the highlights of our summer in a bullet format:

• Elysia's garden got bigger this summer with the highlight being a new patch of strawberries, and some additional rhubarb plants from some local farms. We really enjoyed eating the fresh peas, cucumbers, lettuce, etc. 

• Our cat ran away after only two months of making our home its habitat. We put out fliers, looked for hours and spent time chasing down leads to no avail.
• An active summer of driving around for appointments, weeks of Bible Camp, and airport runs kept Elysia in the driver's seat much of the time. The time driving aggravated her hip condition and back pain thus changing her mind and scheduling hip surgery for September 2.
• Ethan spent two weeks in May teaching in the beautiful African country of Uganda. two months later in July, he travelled again, this time to teach pastors in South Asia.
• Ethan spent Father's Day in bed with pneumonia.
• Gretchen and Peter John experienced ministry first-hand by loving the poor and serving on a mission trip to South Dakota in June.
• Amy and Elysia went to the Sherburne County Fair. She rode a Ferris Wheel for the first time!

• Peter John was our faithful keeper of our yard through weekly lawn mowing and trimming.
• Gretchen improved her culinary skills (and kept our kitchen hot) by her daily baking and cooking projects.
• An inch worm got into our A/C Heat Exchange wall unit thus burning out an off-brand Korean machine with an expired warranty and no options for replacement parts. Amazing what a little worm can do.
• Lizzy and Amy devoured the books on our shelves and at the Princeton Library. We visited the library every Monday on our way to violin lessons. The girls are learning so much from their teacher, Jill Musick Selin, who teaches out of her farm house in rural Princeton. Gretchen has excelled under her tutelage as well.
• Ethan's sister, Sharon, spent five days with us while her son was at Bible Camp. While she was here, she helped Elysia repaint our basement bathroom a light Aqua color to match the turquoise and pink decor. Yay!
• Peter John was invited by his Uncle David to spend a week in Utah and Montana with him and cousin Andy which included a backpacking trip to a lake for camping in Yellowstone Park. David put him in the front of the hike because he was a good pacesetter. PJ is almost six feet tall now at age 12.

• Ethan's nephew, Tim, from Dallas spent some time with us in August so that he could also attend Bible Camp at Inspiration Point. Sadly, Peter John missed camp because of a persistent fever virus. 
• Lizzy's grandparents flew her out to Arizona to visit them for a few days before our family reunion in August. Elysia gave up her sweet daughter as an "unaccompanied minor" on an airplane flight entrusting her into The Good Shepherd's hands. Lizzy was the first in our family to ever see the Grand Canyon! She took lots of pictures.
• After some major work on our cars at Integrity Automotive, we packed up Waldo, our little trailer, and took the minivan packed with camping gear for our family car trip to Montana and Eastern Idaho. The first weekend was spent in Billings to attend our nephew, Mark's confirmation and to hear his dad, Bill, preach at Yellowstone Lutheran Brethren Church. Elysia's parents and ancestors are from Montana, so we drove to Sunset Memorial Gardens to visit the graves of her grandparents and other relatives. 
• We saw Ethan's entire family for our family reunion at his brother's cabin in Eastern Idaho, and we enjoyed Bear and Moose country. What a feast for our eyes. The mountains were lovely, albeit covered in a smoky haze from the western forest fires. After the reunion, our little family rented a forest service log cabin with no electricity or water in the wilderness of the Gallatin Mountain range of Montana.  than was in his happy place. We cooked in cast iron over a fire and brought gear to protect us from the Grizzlies. We carried water from the natural spring in buckets for washing and filtering for drinking. The undistracted, quiet secluded life gave us time with each other, with God, and alone with ourselves. The girls especially enjoyed the natural springs near the cabin, and we all enjoyed mountaineering and playing in the creeks. Ethan, Gretchen, PJ, and Amy made it to the top of Pika Point on a seven-hour hike. Elysia's hips and back forced her to turn back. Lizzy went with her along with the bear spray. Ethan kept the wood stove burning at night, and we awoke to frost outside three mornings in a row. On our hikes each day we saw screeching hawks, squirrels, many small birds, mule deer, woodchucks, gophers, a pair of beavers at a mountain lake, ducks, and horses. The flowers up high on the mountain caught our attention, especially the Indian paintbrush and the lupine. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

  

  Pika Point, Montana

  
  
• Lizzy got braces!