Shane Claiborne Quotes

The real end of prayer is not so much to get this or that single desire granted, as to put human life into full and joyful conformity with the will of God.

True prayer is asking God what He wants.

Prayer opens our lives for God so his will can be done in and through us, because in true prayer we habitually put ourselves into the attitude of willingness to do whatever God wills.

Prayer is, for me, not an opportunity to ask God to do stuff for me. Prayer is an opportunity to open myself, to try and understand his will, and oftentimes it's a prayer of thanksgiving, and sometimes it's a prayer of supplication, and sometimes it is just worship.

Prayer is not about letting God know your will; it's about completely submitting to him. You die to yourself.

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

I'm a woman of faith. And I really believe that if I say, 'God, this is what I want,' He says, 'I'll give you your desires, as long as they line up with My will.'

Spread out your petition before God, and then say, "Thy will, not mine, be done." The sweetest lesson I have learned in God's school is to let the Lord choose for me.

. . . in the spiritual life you must practice. And the only way to practice is by trying to solve your problems with prayer. This develops your spiritual power and it also trains you to use that spiritual power in the most effective way.

We are trying not so much to make God listen to us as to make ourselves listen to him; we are trying not to persuade God to do what we want, but to find out what he wants us to do. It so often happens that in prayer we are really saying, 'Thy will be changed,' when we ought to be saying, 'Thy will be done.' The first object of prayer is not so much to speak to God as to listen to him.

Prayer does not mean that I am to bring God down to my thoughts and my purposes, and bend his government according to my foolish, silly, and sometimes sinful notions. Prayer means that I am to be raised up into feeling, into union and design with him; that I am to enter into his counsel and carry out his purpose fully.

Perfection consists in doing His will, in being that which He wants us to be.

Prayer is not asking God to do something, it's asking God to help YOU do something

Some unanswered prayers are only because God doesn't want to do something for us. He wants to do something through us.

Why pray if we cannot change God? ...is that why we pray? To change omniscient Love? Isn't it rather to learn what it is and to fulfill it? Not to change it by our acts, but to change our acts by it.

If you want to pray better, you have to pray more.

Daily prayers can help us keep on the path that leads to eternal life. We are very unlikely to stray if we offer a humble, simple prayer at least each morning and evening to express thanks and to seek divine guidance.

I once heard somebody say that God had closed a door on an opportunity they had hoped for. But I've always wondered if when we want to do something that we know is right and good, God places that desire deep in our hearts because He wants it for us and it honors Him. Maybe there are times when we think a door has been closed and, instead of misinterpreting the circumstances, God wants us to kick it down. Or perhaps just sit outside of it long enough until somebody tells us we can come in.

To be 'in the will of God' is not a matter of intellectual discernment, but a state of heart.

If God doesn't want something for me, I shouldn't want it either. Spending time in meditative prayer, getting to know God, helps align my desires with God's.

Whatever God wants to do through you, He will do in you first. You've got to be what you want to see.

Get into the habit of saying, ''Speak, Lord,'' and life will become a romance.

I used to pray that God would do this or that; now I pray that God will make His will known to me.

Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me; sanctification is God’s idea of what He wants to do for me.