Prayer

It could be a perfunctory ritual, passed down through generations; a mechanically recited poem. But equally, the mealtime prayer can be a genuine spiritual exercise.

Many families who feared that the new coronavirus would affect their health ended up dreading its effect on something seemingly even more difficult to protect: the well-being of their relationship.

Whenever we acknowledge that our prayers have become a boring exercise rather than a real conversation with a real person, it’s time to explore creative, tried and tested methods to rebuild a meaningful, enthusiastic and transforming prayer life.

The way we pray in public reveals what our secret prayers are truly like. Beyond mere words, it is our attitude and motivation that give meaning and substance to prayer.

What do Protestants have against the intercession of saints? If, during their lives on earth, the saints interceded with God for their fellow men, after they’ve gone to heaven would they be wrapped in holy indifference? Or would their intercession continue?

For Christian parents, there is no greater concern than to provide their children with a Christian education. The first public demonstration of this concern is the blessing of children at young ages, in various ways: the baptism of children in traditional churches, or a simple prayer of blessing in Protestant churches. Dedicating their children to God, one way or another, gives parents a...

The imbalance between the requests and the thanksgiving we bring into our worship is a topic any Christian can talk about, and not just based on other people’s experience. As long as we approach praise and thanksgiving as duties to be fulfilled, we will miss the greatest blessings that can rest upon a heart full of gratitude.

“We need a bigger vision in prayer. We need God’s vision! Let’s keep praying and daring to ask for more—for God’s glory, that the gospel may go into all the world, into all nations, that Jesus may come!”

“I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15).

In talking to pastor Cristian Modan, the religion teacher and chaplain at Mihai Ionescu School in Bucharest, I wanted to find out how we should teach children to communicate with God.

We have trouble understanding and accepting the image of a loving God, as we have grown too familiar with the type of love that offers itself only when it finds in a person the qualities that make them easy to love.

Many times we don’t have the patience to wait for an answer to our prayers, and other times we don’t even know when we've received it. For the ten Boom family, the answer to some prayers came 100 years later.

God reveals Himself through the Bible, the person of Jesus Christ, nature, and our conscience. Prayer is not revelatory. If it is neither revelatory for humans nor for God, what is prayer then?

This coronavirus crisis has, for me, some perplexing parallels with a well-known incident narrated in the Gospel of Matthew (14:22-33). The disciples are confined in a little boat in the middle of a terrible storm, almost as we are confined at home today by the emergency laws of our countries.

When we think of gratitude and a lack of gratitude, the biblical scene that comes to mind is the healing of the ten lepers, of whom only one, a Samaritan, returned to thank the Saviour, worshiping and praising God in a loud voice (Luke 17:15-16).