Richard Foster (theologian) - Prayer - 10th Anniversary Edition (2002)

9 Sourced Quotes

View all Richard Foster Quotes
Countless people pray far more than they know. Often they have such a "stained-glass" image of prayer that they fail to recognize what they are experiencing as prayer and so condemn themselves for not praying.

Richard Foster
Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.

Richard Foster
Our problem is that we assume prayer is something to master the way we master algebra or auto mechanics. But when praying, we come "underneath," where we calmly and deliberately surrender control and become incompetent.

Richard Foster
The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture.

Richard Foster
Jesus reminds us that prayer is a little like children coming to their parents. Our children come to us with the craziest requests at times! Often we are grieved by the meanness and selfishness in their requests, but we would be all the more grieved if they never came to us even with their meanness and selfishness. We are simply glad that they do come--mixed motives and all.

Richard Foster
And so I urge you: carry on an ongoing conversation with God about the daily stuff of life, a little like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. For now, do not worry about "proper" praying, just talk to God.

Richard Foster
In the same way that a small child cannot draw a bad picture so a child of God cannot offer a bad prayer.

Richard Foster
He is inviting you - and me - to come home, to come home to where we belong, to come home to that for which we were created. His arms are stretched out wide to receive us. His heart is enlarged to take us in.

Richard Foster
To pray is to change. This is a great grace. How good of God to provide a path whereby our lives can be taken over by love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.

Richard Foster