blip : Bold Ligature Italic Phonts :

As is usually the case, the driving ideas for my last sermon didn’t come from my own head. That almost never happens. I got my stuff from Karl Barth’s wonderful little book on prayer: Prayer. Here are a few of the quotes that proved helpful for my sermon:

Prayer is a grace, an offer of God. (13)

To be a Christian and to pray are one and the same thing; it is a matter that cannot be left to our caprice. It is a need, a kind of breathing necessary to life. (15)

Saying to God ‘Thy kingdom come’ presupposes that those who pray know this kingdom, this life, this justice, this newness, this reconciliation; they know that all this is not foreign to them. They must know it, and when they pray in these words, the kingdom must already have come. (36)