June 2012
June 28, 2012
Years ago when I was looking for some help with my prayer life, someone I could get together with regularly, a name popped into my mind.
Arthur Caliandro was then the senior minister at Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. “Talk to Arthur,” was the insistent thought. But he’s so busy, I told myself. He runs a big church. He doesn’t have time to get together with me. “Talk to him anyway,” the inner nagging continued.
June 26, 2012
Do you have a friend who will pray for you about anything, at any time, night or day?
“Ping, ping” goes my wife Carol’s cell phone. A text message. She picks up the phone and reads, then types a message back.
“Who was that?” I ask.
“Roberta,” she says, naming a friend from choir at church.
“Ping, ping” goes the cell phone again.
“Roberta again?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Asking about choir rehearsal?”
June 21, 2012
If you could read only three Bible verses, what would they be?
Mary C. Neal shared her extraordinary near-death experience in the mountains of southern Chile with Guideposts. Her kayak was trapped under a waterfall and her soul escaped from her body, flying to heaven’s gate. She survived and returned to her home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where both she and her husband are spinal surgeons. It was there in the hospital that she had another extraordinary experience.
June 19, 2012
Ever get so full up—or distracted—that you can’t see your way through a problem? Times like that, I pray for a God’s-eye view: Lord, help me see things your way.
The other day I was looking out my window down at someone parallel parking. I could see the man back in to the space, bumping up against the curb, then pull forward, turn his wheel again and bump up to the car behind. He pulled forward and then backed up next to the space just to see if he could fit.
June 12, 2012
It’s not often that you get a prayer in a big-budget Hollywood movie—and The Lord’s Prayer at that.
So I was a little surprised when I saw Snow White and the Huntsman over the weekend and all of a sudden, imprisoned in her dark tower, the captured princess Snow White (the luminescent Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame) kneels and prays the familiar words, “Our Father, who art in heaven ...”
June 8, 2012
I was reading something the other day that said when you pray, keep in mind how glad God is to hear from you. “It’s the way you feel when you’re a parent and you get a call or a text or an email from your kids,” the writer said. I know what that’s like, I thought.
June 5, 2012
They prayed for us. Time to pray for them.
It just came out as a passing thought, but it startled me at the time. I was 18 years old and had just arrived at my college campus, all the way across the country from my parents. In those days there was no email or texting and long-distance calls were expensive, especially if you called collect. I remember a system where on Sunday nights I would ring twice and hang up. My signal for them to call back.
Rick Hamlin is the executive editor of Guideposts magazine and the author of 10 Prayers You Can't Live Without. To learn more about the book and explore your own prayer journey, watch this video.
