I asked God to take away my pride. God said, "No. It is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up."

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole. God said, "No. Her spirit is whole, her body is only temporary."

I asked God to grant me patience. God said, "No.Patience is a by- product of tribulations; it isn't granted, it is earned."

I asked God to give me happiness. God said, "No. I give you blessings, happiness is up to you."

I asked God to spare me pain. God said, "No. Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me."

I asked God to make my spirit grow. God said, "No. You must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful."

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. God said, "No. I will give you life so that you may enjoy all things."

I asked God to help me love others, as much as God loves me. God said... "Ahhhh, finally you have the idea!"

Someone accurately said that maturity in prayer occurs when we are able to move from the plea, "Give me..." to the deeper prayer, "Use me."

O God, we know it is easy for us to have faith when things are going well for us. But faith becomes more difficult when times are tough, and we are filled with anxiety. How easy it is to become like demanding children, wanting solutions to our problems right here and now.

Forgive us when present challenges keep us from remembering your faithfulness to us, and difficulties of the moment become an excuse to neglect Christês call to love you with all that we have and to love others as ourselves. Strengthen us in our beliefs, and have mercy on our fragile souls.           AMEN.

- William Barclay

Source Unknown

Joan and I had just settled down to have lunch, at our picnic table outside. The dog cantered up to the table, plunked his jowls on the edge of it and stared at our sandwiches. If telekinesis worked, those sandwiches should have voluntarily slid across the table into his mouth.

I started to say grace. "For this food, dear God..."

Someone burped. A rich, rolling, resonant "Urrrrupppppl"

It was the dog.

I tried to keep a straight face. Joan dissolved in hysterical laughter.

"That probably expresses gratitude better than anything I could say," I rationalized.

Whether a burp is an acceptable grace depends on one's understanding of prayer.

If you expect prayer to use familiar words and phrases, it won't be. When I was a small child, my bedtime prayers followed an unchanging ritual. I always concluded with the same sequence: "God bless Grandpa and Grandma in Canada, and Granny and Grandpa in Ireland, and God bless Mummy and Daddy, and make me a good boy. Amen."

Over the years, I've grown less and less comfortable with memorized formulas. They trip too easily off the tongue. One phrase follows another, like beads on a string.

Some of my friends tell me that the constant repetition of a "Hail Mary" or some other mantra-like sequence frees their minds to wander, to meditate and to listen to God whispering within them. It just puts me to sleep.

A few years ago, I caught the last bits of an interview on the radio. Almost as an afterthought, the interviewer asked, "What is prayer?"

And the interviewee replied, "Prayer is the deepest longing of the heart."

I love that definition. Because that kind of prayer doesn't need words. What someone really longs for, hungers and thirsts for will shape every aspect of that person's life. It will reach out in that person's actions and relationships. And that person's words.

So if our dog's burp expressed his deepest longing, it was indeed a prayer.

If you make a habit of sincere prayer, your life will be very noticeably and profoundly altered. Prayer stamps with its indelible mark our actions and demeanor. A tranquility of bearing, a facial and bodily repose, are observed in those whose inner lives are thus enriched. Within the depths of consciousness a flame kindles. And man sees himself. He discovers his selfishness, his silly pride, his fears, his greeds, his blunders. He develops a sense of moral obligation, intellectual humility.

- Alexis Carrel, in "Net Results"

In the Anderson college of Medicine at Glasgow University, a simple plaque is dedicated to the memory of John Smith ( a common name for an uncommon man). For John Smith gave his life as a doctor among a simple people on the West Coast of Africa.

In his isolated and dangerous work, Dr. Smith became so ill that he was warned that he would be dead within six months if he stayed in Africa. He packed his trunks and was taken in a small boat to the waiting ship.  From the deck he could still see and hear the distress of the people he was leaving. Their cries pierced his heart. He signaled that he wished to return to shore. He unpacked his bags and resumed work. Dr. Smith was dead within three months.

But Dr. Smith did not really die. He lived on and still lives to disturb the comfortable complacency of an acquisitive society in the face of desperate human need. He compels us to ask how far we are prepared to inconvenience ourselves in response to a cry for help or a look that pleads.  As Christ gave His life for others, so every real Christian is called to do the same. “He who loses his life, the same shall find it.”