We must not give to other what we have received for ourselves; nor must we keep for ourselves that which we have received to spend on others… You dissipate and lse what is your own, if without right intention and form some wrong motive, you hasten to outpour yourself on others when your own soul is only half-filled.
If you are wise therefore you will show yourself reservoir and not a canal. For a canal pours out as fast as it takes in; but a reservoir waits till it is full before it overflows, and so communicates its surplus… we have all too few such reservoirs in the Church at present, though we have canals in plenty… they [canals] desire to pour out when they themselves are not yet impoured; they are readier to speak than to listen, eager to teach that which they do not know, and most anxious to exercise authority on others, although they have not learnt to rule themselves… let the reservoir of which we spoke just now take pattern from the spring; for the spring does not form a stream or spread into a lake unti it is brimful… be filed thyself; then, but discreetly, mind, pour thy fullness out of thy fullness help me if thou canst; and if not, spare thyself.
Ole Hallesby(1879- 1961), Prayer:
Prayer and helplessness are inseparable. Only he who is helpless can truly pray.
Listen to this, you who are often so helpless that you do not know what to do. At times you do not even know how to pray. Your mind seems full of sin and impurity. Your mind is preoccupied with what the Bible calls the world. God and eternal and holy things seems so distant and foreign to you that you feel that you add sin to sin be desiring to approach God in such a state of mind. Now and then you must ask yourself the question, “Do I really desire to be set free from the lukewarmness of my heart and worldly life? Is not my Christian life always lukewarm and half-hearted for the simple reason that deep down in my heart I desire it that way?
Thus an honest soul struggles against the dishonesty of his own being. He feels himself so helplessly lost that his prayers freeze on his very lips.
Listen, my friend! Your helplessness is your best prayer. It calls from your heart to the heart of God with greater effect than all your uttered pleas. He hears it from the very moment that you are seized with helplessness, and He becomes actively engaged at once in hearing and answering the prayer of your helplessness.
Marva Dawn, The Sense of the Call:
If we lack prayerfulness, then the solution is not to hammer ourselves with guilt that we are so bad at it, but to engage in practices that help us know God. We receive grace best by watching it descend from God rather than focusing on our reception of it.
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