8. What should I look for when I go into myself? .... ........ 13
3. What do I need to begin to pray?
To pray, one needs desire. "Your desire is itself your prayer. And if your desire is continuous, then your prayer is continuous as well.""
4. What else will help me along the way in the life of prayer?
"Fasting and abstinence from satisfying sensual pleasure in such a way that health is not threatened, along with almsgiving are especially helpful to prayer, in order to say truly, "When in trouble I sought the Lord, all night long I stretch out my hands" (Ps. 77: 2). How can God, intangible Spirit, be touched by hands by any other way than by good works?""
5. So prayer is more than words?
"With my voice I have cried to the Lord. It did not suffice to say `with voice,' and it was not unintentional that the word `my' was added. Many cry out to the Lord, not with their own voice, but with their corporeal voice alone. Let the `inner man' in whom Christ dwells by faith (Eph. 3:17), cry out to the Lord, not with the noise of lips alone, but with the affection of the heart. God does not hear as men hear. Unless you cry out with a voice from the depths of your lungs and with your tongue, men will not hear you. Unless you cry out to the Lord with your thought, the Lord does not hear you. Your thought is your cry. With my voice I have prayed to the Lord. What he meant by `I have cried out to the Lord' is explained when he says, `I have prayed unto the Lord' . . . First, he speaks of his crying, then he explained what it was, as if an explanation were demanded of him: with what kind of cry have you cried out to the Lord? He responds, I have prayed unto the Lord. My cry is not reviling, murmuring, nor blaspheming, but simply my prayer.""
6. Where is all of this leading?
"We would keep vigil, yet we fall asleep. We want to fast, and we hunger and thirst. We want to stand and we tire ourselves out and wish to sit, yet if we do this for long, we weary. No matter what we provide for our refection, we find defection ... What, then, is this peace men have who are confronted with so many difficulties, trials, desires, wants, and weariness? ... What will be his peace? For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality (1 Cor. 15:53) ... For where mortality is still to be found, how can there be full peace there? It is from death that such weariness comes, just as we find it in all our means of refreshment ... When death is swallowed up in victory, these things shall be no longer ... There shall be peace made pure in the sons of God, all loving one another, seeing one another full of God, since God shall be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). We shall have God as our common object of vision, as our common possession, our common peace. For whatever he gives us now, he shall be to us in place of his present gifts. He shall be our full and perfect peace ... Our joy, our peace, our rest, the end of our troubles, is none but God.""
7. What if I don't feel drawn to prayer?
"No man comes unless he is drawn. There are those he draws, and there are those he does not draw. Do not even consider why he draws one and why he does not draw another, if you do not want to err. Simply accept it and then understand. Are you not drawn? Pray, then, that you might be drawn to him."" It is urgent to overcome sentimentalism in our relationship with God. He is far too worthy and our soul too precious to attempt to tread the waters of this life alone and without God's help, or simply with his help when we feel like it.
"There is no sea so deep as the thoughts of God, who makes evil men to flourish and the good to suffer - nothing so profound, nothing so deep. And it is upon that deep, in that profundity that every unbelieving soul is wrecked. Do you want to cross over the deep? Then do not move away from the wood of Christ's Cross. You shall not sink; just hold tight to Christ.""