QUOTES in CAN

In the middle of the journey of our life
I found myself within a dark forest
where the straight path was lost.” -

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita.
Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy- Inferno, canto I Lines 1-3

After my last post, I can’t seem to find a glimpse on how I’m going to talk about the power of prayer. I feel so empty inside. I feel something is missing or maybe I am looking for my own way of writing it, not according to what the Good Spirit is telling me. I waited. I am just flowing like a falling leaf not knowing where the wind will take it.

Five days counting and nothing! This evening my friend Bea dropped by carrying a book “The Divine Comedy” by Dante. She asked me to translate some italian lines in english. I told her it was my favorite book in College days and I considered it the world’s greatest work of theological poetry. As I was trying to translate Canto I of “Inferno”, memory of a past spiritual rebirth starts flashing before me.

“In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark forest, where the straight path was lost.” were the first three lines. They keep on stirring my memory, back into my past.

Yes I have ” journeyed through life” on my whims to follow my own desires, my obstinacy to bend to rules and narcissism to ignore and understand a human affection for me. If there are seven deadly sins, I had eight !

My indifference was the eight and I believe it is the epitome of all evil!  When there is indifference, you don’t feel love nor hate. You just live alone on your own island blind to other’s feeling and situation.

That condition was  my “dark forest where my path is lost” as Dante described his life. My life followed a wandering course like a planetary vagabond. Through my drifting, I became unhappy, unsatisfied. I felt lost! 

A ”light” in my dark forest , beamed  on my “muddy” ground. It is that perfect moment which led me to be conscious of having erred and strayed.

And in the “midst of my journey“, He presented Himself to me like a dawning day or a strike of a lightning. It was similar to Saul’s experience on his road to Damascus .

That Light was my saving grace. Its touch, a  soothing balm to my weary soul.  It was the first moment I felt God caressing my life. I never knew Him. I heard about Him but never had a contact with Him. I never talked to Him.

How did I know it was God? Something changed inside me. I felt a supernatural aura, a Presence too intense to make my indifference changed into reaching out, my inner wounds were healed, my hollow strength became weak, my self- fortress crumbled! Most of all, if you believe it or not, I heard his voice saying: “Ross, I love you.”

His words, His touch made me discover the right path. He made me discover a “relationship” between us two.  His compassion and mercy for my sins made me realized His personal Presence in my life making me see what is inner beauty and what is true fullness of life.

Now, you might asked me, what am I trying to converge between my conversion and power of prayer?

Well, I am convinced it is the focal point of our prayer life.

It is that personal relationship with God that will uplift your prayer.  It is a personal love relationship between you and your God.

It is analogous  to your love relationship with your “significant other”. You constantly seek her/his presence. You yearn to hear her/his voice, to stay beside your partner…to talk, to listen, to observe or simply, to be a loving presence! True??

To be touched by Love is important for it becomes your fulcrum to lift up your soul to God. Prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a cry of recognition and of love, it is the heart that prays.

Prayer is not a half-hearted ritual recitation of words; it is an outpouring of the heart.

Let me reiterate, it is only when you recognize His loving presence in your daily life, your prayer becomes to be powerful to see beyond the horizon, to see beyond the stumbling blocks of life, to feel beyond pain, to feel tranquility in being empty-handed or feel joy when you feel un-needed…all because…you simply love LOVE!

The power of prayer begins to unfold!

to be continued…

                   Bless The Broken Road  by  Rascal Flatts

CONVERSION QUOTES

Once my heart was captured, reason was shown the door, deliberately and with a sort of frantic joy. I accepted everything, I believed everything, without struggle, without suffering, without regret, without false shame. How can one blush for what one adores?” - George Sand

I believe that a man is converted when first he hears the low, vast murmur of life, of human life, troubling his hitherto unconscious self.” - D. H. Lawrence

The great danger of conversion in all ages has been that when the religion of the high mind is offered to the lower mind, the lower mind, feeling its fascination without understanding it, and being incapable of rising to it, drags it down to its level by degrading it.” - George Bernard Shaw

Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me? I said, I’m not resisting you! He said, You gonna follow me? I said, I’ve never thought about that before! He said, When you’re not following me, you’re resisting me.” - Bob Dylan

I used to say: there is a God-shaped hole in me. For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important.” - Salman Rushdie

In every sound convert the judgment is brought to approve of the laws and ways of Christ, and subscribe to them as most righteous and reasonable; the desire of the heart is to know the whole mind of Christ; the free and resolved choice of the heart is determined for the ways of Christ, before all the pleasures of sin, and prosperities, of the world; it is the daily care of his life to walk with God.” -Joseph Addison

Palaces and pyramids are reared by laying one brick, or block, at a time; and the kingdom of Christ is enlarged by individual conversions.” -Joseph Alleine

Should you suffer your weary soul this day to sink into the arms of that Saviour who rejoices to pardon and is mighty to save, the first entrance of such a word, and the first response of such a faith, would be the date of your better life and the commencement of your union to Christ. The graft has taken. At first the juncture may be very slight–a single thread or fiber–and it is not till you try to part them that you find that they are knit together; that their life is one, and that the force which plucks away the graft must also wound the vine. And your faith may yet be no more than a single filament. It may be only one point of attachment by which you are joined to the Lord Jesus. It may be only one solitary sentence, one isolated invitation or promise, of which you have undoubting hold. But hold it fast. If it be the word of Jesus, cling to it.” James H. Aughey

It is slow work to be born again.” -Henry Ward Beecher

In what way, or by what manner of working, God changes a soul from evil to good, how He impregnates the barren rock–the priceless gems and gold–is to the human mind an impenetrable mystery, in all cases alike.” -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The most zealous converters are always the most rancorous when they fail of producing conversion.” -Charles Caleb Colton

Conversion by the Holy Spirit is a spiritual illumination of the soul. God’s grace lights up the dark heart. And when a man has once been kindled at the cross of Christ, he is bound to shine.” -Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

Conversion is the act of joining our hands to the pierced hand of the crucified Saviour. The new life begins with the taking of Christ’s hand, and His taking hold, in infinite love, of our weak hands.” -Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

As to the value of conversions, God alone can judge. God alone can know how wide are the steps which the soul has to take before it can approach to a community with Him, to the dwelling of the perfect, or to the intercourse and friendship of higher natures.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A man to be converted has to give up his will, his ways, and his thoughts.” -Dwight Lyman Moody

You cannot find, I believe, a case in the Bible where a man is converted without God’s calling in some human agency–using some human instrument.” -Dwight Lyman Moody

My observation continues to confirm me more and more in the opinion that to experience religion is to experience the truth of the great doctrines of divine grace.” -Ichabod Smith Spencer

The evidence of our acceptance in the Beloved arises in proportion to our love, to our repentance, to our humility, to our faith to our self-denial, to our delight in duty. Other evidence than this the Bible knows not–God has not given.” - Gardiner Spring

Conversion is not, as some suppose, a violent opening of the heart by grace, in which will, reason and judgment are all ignored or crushed. The season is not blinded, but enlightened; and the whole man is made to act with a glorious liberty which it never knew till it fell under the restraints of grace.” -Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Filed under: LOVE, POWER of PRAYER, CONVERSION QUOTES, HOPE, FAITH, RELATIONSHIPS, COMMUNICATION, QUOTES by ross