I love to collect seashells. I don't know why. We bring them home and pile them in old styrofoam coolers where they serve as nesting spaces for spiders. Nonetheless, I go to the beach, walk a bit, and before I know it, I'm gathering shells that simply seem to cry out for me to have them.

This afternoon I decided to collect some articles online that talk about prayer. I hope you enjoy reading them. Just click on the titles to go straight to the articles.

Great Things Happen When You Pray

by Norman Vincent Peale

Here are some of his quotable bits:

Often a person will complain, “I’ve prayed and prayed and didn’t get what I wanted.” Well who said you are supposed to get what you want? Prayer isn’t a device to get what you want.

Prayer is a means of bringing you to the point where you will accept what God wants. If you’re using prayer just for getting what you want, your engaging in an improper use of prayer.

To live a full and happy life is to learn...

   I don’t know how your elementary schools ended their field days but mine always culminated with a great big game of tug of war. We lined up on opposite sides of a mud pit, grabbed hold of that dirty rope and held on tight as we wrestled with the team on the other side. We strained against the pressure, heaved and hauled as hard as we could. Back and forth we’d go as the bystanders hollered and our faces turned purple. We grunted and groaned until we either fell on our backsides in victory or found ourselves face down in the mud pit of defeat.

  That was fun.

  Those tug of war games remind me of Jacob’s wrestling match with God, and what a wrestling match that was! Jacob, a mere man, afraid, vulnerable, and completely at the mercy of God, versus the Lord Almighty, the ultimate power of heaven. Is it just me, or do you too find it interesting that, while Jacob was terrified of his brother, he didn’t hesitate to take on God? I love that!...