It is difficult enough to learn how to pray to God, but let's start by being specific in your petitions, also called requests.
Prayers come from expressions of gratitude to urgent requests for help, may it be financial, to find a job, an illness, or a life or death situation. I have prayed for all the items that I mentioned. To my amazing surprise I got answers to just about everything. I mean, everything that was important, that is!
What I have found in all of my years of praying is that begging God to give you what you want will simply not work. What does work for me is to lay my request at his doorstep and wait for answers. How many times have you and I been reminded that faith answers all prayers?
"According to your faith be it unto you." The blind have received sight; the sick have recovered; the lonely have been succored; the desperate have been helped, etc. I can go on with many instances in my life where I could have lost my life in situations totally out of my control. And yet I did something to correct a bad situation, or someone in the form of a human being came to my rescue. I never felt that I was alone while I was in distress and in need of help.
I truly believe that if we keep our minds on God on a regular basis, life somehow gets easier for all of us. One recent example was the earthquake in Haiti of January 12, 2010. I was supposed to go to Haiti and take care of business for a friend of mine. We talked about it for an entire week just before the earthquake. I could have easily encouraged my friend, who owns a cargo ship and has it docked 30 miles west of Port-au-Prince, to buy an air ticket for me.
I was in Haiti last December, and I knew that unless you rent a car and drive yourself, the local transportation was not adequate. We kept talking for almost a week as to how I was to get to the port city of Miragoane. He was going to ask a friend of his that lives in Haiti to take me.
The following week the earthquake hit, and I could have been history today.
To say prayers of happiness, joy, gratitude, blessedness, health for my family and friends, and for protection is my daily mission. You may call it a chore, but I prefer to thank God for all that he does for me and my family, than to keep asking him for everything.
God knows what we need before we even ask him. Let him do his job!
If you should have someone in your family who is ill and needs a prayer or holy water, please ask and I will send you a small vial with it. It is my pleasure to do so, and it is my courtesy.
Tony McCleary
tonymcclr@gmail.com
http://www.prayer-be-strong.blogspot.com/
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Haiti—a proud nation and a beautiful people
I was in Haiti, in the city of Port-au-Prince during the middle of December 2009. I spent an entire week driving between the capital and the port city of Miragoane, about 2 hours distance by car. Every night my boss and I would return to the capital city, and we stayed in one of the best hotels there called the Karibe.
I wrote an article this week which I published on Ezine Articles regarding Haiti. My goal was to present an objective assessment of the locations where I visited during my stay, and to describe the incredible level of poverty before the disaster.
Today, a good portion of both cities has been destroyed by the earthquake of January 12, 2010. How many people that I met during my stay are alive today? I want them all to have survived, but I doubt it very much!
Over the months I have posted many pages with my thoughts on prayer and holy water. I have mentioned before that we are subject to the capricious behavior of nature. Knowing the natural laws and how they can affect us, we take precautions. In California, construction laws determine the way that houses and buildings must be built in order to conform. It is paramount that all structures be able to sustain the effects of a strong earthquake and the post-tremors.
In Florida, most structures are built of concrete blocks to protect the structure and the residents from hurricanes. In Haiti no such precautions exist. I saw many shanty town houses built of concrete blocks, metal sheets and cardboard. None of these structures could sustain any movement of the earth. Perhaps the Karibe Hotel did hold up, because it was a new structure, and which apparently survived the earthquake.
Haiti was extremely poor before the earthquake. It is now worse than ever, and it will get worst as time passes. People outside Haiti must come to understand that this country has no chance to stand by itself. It required massive amounts of aid before the disaster, and it will require more help than ever now that it has been grounded to its knees.
Not even the Archbishop of Haiti survived the tragic event. Is there a lesson to all of this that I just don't understand? Many of the churches in Port-au-Prince are not even standing any longer.
You watch the news and you see the dead bodies of humans who just a week ago were alive, and moving about the city going somewhere. Now those same bodies are being dumped in mass graves, and others are being piled and burned in order to prevent massive decease from occurring. How much is a human being worth in Haiti? If you are dead, I guess you're worth nothing!
How sad that a beautiful people like the Haitians cannot live or die in dignity. Was anybody aware of the extreme poverty that these people lived under before the earthquake? Did anybody foresee the dangers that the many tectonic faults (massive plates moving in different directions) on the island could someday unleash a terrible and inevitable disaster?
Let us pray for the Haitians who have passed on, and those that must bear the loss of members of their family, but who will continue to live hopefully under a better and a healthier environment.
Tony McCleary
tonymcclr@gmail.com
http:///www.prayer-be-strong.blogspot.com
I wrote an article this week which I published on Ezine Articles regarding Haiti. My goal was to present an objective assessment of the locations where I visited during my stay, and to describe the incredible level of poverty before the disaster.
Today, a good portion of both cities has been destroyed by the earthquake of January 12, 2010. How many people that I met during my stay are alive today? I want them all to have survived, but I doubt it very much!
Over the months I have posted many pages with my thoughts on prayer and holy water. I have mentioned before that we are subject to the capricious behavior of nature. Knowing the natural laws and how they can affect us, we take precautions. In California, construction laws determine the way that houses and buildings must be built in order to conform. It is paramount that all structures be able to sustain the effects of a strong earthquake and the post-tremors.
In Florida, most structures are built of concrete blocks to protect the structure and the residents from hurricanes. In Haiti no such precautions exist. I saw many shanty town houses built of concrete blocks, metal sheets and cardboard. None of these structures could sustain any movement of the earth. Perhaps the Karibe Hotel did hold up, because it was a new structure, and which apparently survived the earthquake.
Haiti was extremely poor before the earthquake. It is now worse than ever, and it will get worst as time passes. People outside Haiti must come to understand that this country has no chance to stand by itself. It required massive amounts of aid before the disaster, and it will require more help than ever now that it has been grounded to its knees.
Not even the Archbishop of Haiti survived the tragic event. Is there a lesson to all of this that I just don't understand? Many of the churches in Port-au-Prince are not even standing any longer.
You watch the news and you see the dead bodies of humans who just a week ago were alive, and moving about the city going somewhere. Now those same bodies are being dumped in mass graves, and others are being piled and burned in order to prevent massive decease from occurring. How much is a human being worth in Haiti? If you are dead, I guess you're worth nothing!
How sad that a beautiful people like the Haitians cannot live or die in dignity. Was anybody aware of the extreme poverty that these people lived under before the earthquake? Did anybody foresee the dangers that the many tectonic faults (massive plates moving in different directions) on the island could someday unleash a terrible and inevitable disaster?
Let us pray for the Haitians who have passed on, and those that must bear the loss of members of their family, but who will continue to live hopefully under a better and a healthier environment.
Tony McCleary
tonymcclr@gmail.com
http:///www.prayer-be-strong.blogspot.com
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Prayers and holy water for a cancer patient—Will it work?
On Monday, January 11th, a patient which I have just become aware of through a friend of mine will be going in for chemo and radiation treatments. The patient is 60 years-old. She is afraid and uncertain of the outcome, and has asked many of her friends to pray for her.
I asked only one question of my friend over coffee at a Starbucks. I asked how it is that this lady contracted cancer? My friend told me that her friend was a heavy smoker for many years.
You have a situation here which was caused by smoking. It is in fact in past tense. The patient used to smoke a lot, but the damage is done. The only alternative now is to submit to the harsh treatments starting on Monday of next week.
Will prayer correct a wrong that was done to the body and by her own willing hand? An addiction to alcohol, illegal drugs, smoking and many other harmful substances can and will bring fatal results. But many of her friends, including me who has no relation to her— other than to have been asked by my friend to pray for her—will do everything possible to bring relief to this patient.
I will also provide holy water from my church to be placed on her neck and chest where the cancer is highly concentrated. Does the patient have to believe that prayers and holy water will work for her? Not at all! It is her friends, including me, that need to believe in the power of prayers and holy water to help her through the ordeal.
Should you have a friend or a relative who needs prayers and holy water, I will be happy to pray for them. Additionally, I will send to you a small vial of holy water from the church where I attend Mass. The holy water is a courtesy of mine, and you just need to place it over the injured area of the person, and just a small amount every day is all that is required.
You might want to read some of my articles which I have published in Ezine Articles, which site is posted on this blog. I would recommend that you start with my favorite one that I titled "The Healing Power of Holy Water."
God bless,
Tony McCleary
tonymcclr@gmail.com
http://www.prayer-be-strong.blogspot.com/
I asked only one question of my friend over coffee at a Starbucks. I asked how it is that this lady contracted cancer? My friend told me that her friend was a heavy smoker for many years.
You have a situation here which was caused by smoking. It is in fact in past tense. The patient used to smoke a lot, but the damage is done. The only alternative now is to submit to the harsh treatments starting on Monday of next week.
Will prayer correct a wrong that was done to the body and by her own willing hand? An addiction to alcohol, illegal drugs, smoking and many other harmful substances can and will bring fatal results. But many of her friends, including me who has no relation to her— other than to have been asked by my friend to pray for her—will do everything possible to bring relief to this patient.
I will also provide holy water from my church to be placed on her neck and chest where the cancer is highly concentrated. Does the patient have to believe that prayers and holy water will work for her? Not at all! It is her friends, including me, that need to believe in the power of prayers and holy water to help her through the ordeal.
Should you have a friend or a relative who needs prayers and holy water, I will be happy to pray for them. Additionally, I will send to you a small vial of holy water from the church where I attend Mass. The holy water is a courtesy of mine, and you just need to place it over the injured area of the person, and just a small amount every day is all that is required.
You might want to read some of my articles which I have published in Ezine Articles, which site is posted on this blog. I would recommend that you start with my favorite one that I titled "The Healing Power of Holy Water."
God bless,
Tony McCleary
tonymcclr@gmail.com
http://www.prayer-be-strong.blogspot.com/
Friday, January 1, 2010
The desire to have a wonderful life
Happy New Year! And I hope that 2010 brings you a wonderful and a very successful year!
How will I manage to do that, you ask? If you lost your job in 2009 and haven't been able to find something equal to or better than what you had, don't despair. Or perhaps you have many other things to worry about, then please listen to my words of advice.
There are many things in life that we can't seem to change, and those are events that simply afflict us; some come at random and others by our own hand. I saw my brother get cancer, and for two years he fought with all his might, only to die at the end. He never gave up until there was no more fight in him. He was 61 when he passed away.
When we tried to comfort him with prayer and special petitions to God, he would reprimand us. He was a firm agnostic, but closer to atheism.
Does prayer work for all of our needs, including a terminal illness?
With God nothing is impossible! How many times have we heard those words, or read them right from the Bible. And yet, do you truly believe in them?
Perhaps for 2010, you don't need to make a resolution to pray for all your needs and those of your loved ones. Just dedicate a few minutes a day to thank God for your life, including all the trials and tribulations that have come your way. Trust me, I have had my share over the years, but I have learned to accept them and to go on with my life.
When you pray from now on, don't doubt yourself nor the results that you are praying for. The biggest mistake that people make is to pray with no heart put into it. Make your prayers as strong as possible, and simply thank God for his will, his mercy and his kindness.
Remember, with God nothing is impossible!
God bless,
Tony McCleary
tonymcclr@gmail.com
http://www.prayer-be-strong.blogspot.com
How will I manage to do that, you ask? If you lost your job in 2009 and haven't been able to find something equal to or better than what you had, don't despair. Or perhaps you have many other things to worry about, then please listen to my words of advice.
There are many things in life that we can't seem to change, and those are events that simply afflict us; some come at random and others by our own hand. I saw my brother get cancer, and for two years he fought with all his might, only to die at the end. He never gave up until there was no more fight in him. He was 61 when he passed away.
When we tried to comfort him with prayer and special petitions to God, he would reprimand us. He was a firm agnostic, but closer to atheism.
Does prayer work for all of our needs, including a terminal illness?
With God nothing is impossible! How many times have we heard those words, or read them right from the Bible. And yet, do you truly believe in them?
Perhaps for 2010, you don't need to make a resolution to pray for all your needs and those of your loved ones. Just dedicate a few minutes a day to thank God for your life, including all the trials and tribulations that have come your way. Trust me, I have had my share over the years, but I have learned to accept them and to go on with my life.
When you pray from now on, don't doubt yourself nor the results that you are praying for. The biggest mistake that people make is to pray with no heart put into it. Make your prayers as strong as possible, and simply thank God for his will, his mercy and his kindness.
Remember, with God nothing is impossible!
God bless,
Tony McCleary
tonymcclr@gmail.com
http://www.prayer-be-strong.blogspot.com
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