Plan for: Thanksgiving | Advent | Christmas

Sermon Illustrations

John Ortberg’s quote, “Prayer involves an old paradox in our day. Almost everyone talks to God. Newsweek magazine noted that in a recent survey more Americans said they pray in a given week than work, exercise, or have sexual relations. Of the 13 percent of Americans who claim to be atheist or agnostic, one in five prays daily. So why are we so often ambivalent about the notion of God talking to us? One recalls Lily Tomlin’s line in the play The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life In The Universe: ‘Why is it that when we speak to God we are said to be praying, but when God speaks to us we are said to be schizophrenic? Why should God’s end of the line be equipped with a receiver but no mouthpiece” (Living the God Life, pg. 135)?

Related Sermon Illustrations

Related Sermons