Purity of heart is to will one thing. — Soren Kierkegaard This post has been on tap for years; I’ve come to feel the time to write it is now. On the one hand, however, I hardly feel I know what I’m talking about. I can see the goal, I can point to it, I can admire it, but I hardly have any idea how to get there. On the other hand, there are multiple directions from which to approach the subject, which fact doesn’t lend itself to the linear-sequential proneness of written w

Arnie (not his real name) has been the sole student of my course on effective prayer. Sunday after church he told me he’d found a couple online resources about effective prayer, that he hoped we could review together. Each of them begins with the necessity of “belief.” When he said this, I became nervous. There are many such sources online, but I’m not comfortable with them. On the one hand, trying to make myself “believe” that the outcome I pray for is inevitable, feels t