“Desperate times call for desperate measures. Would you consider prayer a desperate measure?” I wasn’t expecting that question at the start of this interview on “prayer in desperate times”! Ben Akers, who is Director of Formed at the Augustine Institute in Denver, invited me to talk on Formed Now! about how the Psalms teach us to pray when times are rough. The […]
THE POWER OF PERSISTENT PRAYER: ST. MONICA
“Pray without ceasing,” St. Paul urged his fellow Christians in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Today we honor a woman who did just that: St. Monica, who prayed through years of tears and against all odds for her pagan husband and wayward son. That son, who became Saint Augustine, later wrote gratefully of his mother: “She said […]
WHEN GOD SAYS “NO”—Psalm 38 and a lesson from David
What do we do when God does not answer our prayer? I know they say he always answers – just not necessarily as we would like. So what do we do when God answers “no”? This week I’ve been meditating on Psalm 38, the third of seven “penitential psalms.” It’s a psalm of David, […]
WHY PRAY, IF IT DOESN’T ALWAYS “WORK”?
(Traducción en español al final) I heard twice from a friend last week, big news about others: one, a mutual acquaintance who suffered years after an accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down, who then got cancer. His funeral this month was a testimony to his faith and the joy he found, in […]
