If at first you don’t succeed, then maybe you have the wrong idea of success, or you’re using the wrong standard of measuring it.

What if the thing that God wants us to receive most in our conversations with Him is not some alternate reality, but an assurance of a divine presence within, and a divine perspective on, our current reality – a presence and perspective that will ultimately change our response to our circumstances and lead us to be responsible within those circumstances? So prayer doesn’t just become some ‘spiritual exercise’ in order to exert our authority over the external world, it becomes a spiritually-physical relationship with a greater authority that brings transformation internally, leading to responsibility externally.

We place this huge burden on answers to function as finish lines, when they more naturally perform as milestones. We fool ourselves if we believe that answers are the proper response to questions, when the formal acknowledgment of a question is to embrace its invitation to enter into the journey of learning.

Experiencing something of the grace of God should always cause our self-perceived ideas about 'Who He is' and 'How He works' to pop.

To still seek God after discovering Him may be a love paradox of the soul, as A.W. Tozer reminds us; but to earnestly continue to perceive God and make Him perceivable, is the quintessence of worship.