Prayer Quotes - Page 152

Prayer is a relationship; half the job is mine. If I want transformation, but can't even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I'm aiming for, how will it ever occur? Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention. If you don't have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift.

What a blessing to be able to leave the cares of life for a brief period and spend time in the outstretched arms of your Shepherd, rubbing, as it were, your cheek against His face in intimate fellowship through prayer.

The flower-girl's prayer to buy roses and pinks, held out in the smoke, like stars by day.

Testimony is a result of choice, not circumstance. In all seasons of my life, testimony has been a conscious choice - and this choice has given everything else in my life meaning. Building a testimony is the beginning of building a happy life. Testimony grows step by step as we invest the effort to exercise faith and hope as active parts of everyday living. Prayer is a major tool to help us gain faith and hope.

It is a most fearful fact to think of, that in every heart there is some secret spring that would be weak at the touch of temptation, and that is liable to be assailed. Fearful, and yet salutary to think of; for the thought may serve to keep our moral nature braced. It warns us that we can never stand at ease, or lie down in this field of life, without sentinels of watchfulness and campfires of prayer.

The best answer to all objections urged against prayer is the fact that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that that which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects and methods in the arrangements of a boundless Providence.

When prayers are strongest, mercies are nearest.

No erudition, no purity of diction, no width of mental outlook, no flowers of eloquence, no grace of person can atone for lack of fire. Prayer ascends by fire. Flame gives prayer access as well as wings, acceptance as well as energy. There is no incense without fire; no prayer without flame.

That man is the most immortal who has done the most and the best praying. They are God heroes, God's saints, God's servants, God's vicegerents.

Other duties become pressing and absorbing and crowd our prayer. "Choked to death" would be the coroner's verdict in many cases of dead praying if an inquest could be secured on this dire, spiritual calamity.

Natural ability and educational advantages do not figure as factors in this matter of prayer; but a capacity for faith, the power of a thorough consecration, the ability of self-littleness, an absolute losing of one's self in God's glory and an ever present and insatiable yearning and seeking after all the fullness of God.

Prayer is the language of a man burdened with a sense of need.

Hope looks toward the future. Trust looks to the present. Hope expects. Trust possesses...what prayer needs, at all times, is abiding and abundant trust.

In doing God's work, there is no substitute for praying. The men of prayer cannot be displaced with other kinds of men.

There is neither encouragement nor room in Bible religion for feeble desires, listless efforts, lazy attitudes; all must be strenuous, urgent, ardent. Flamed desires, impassioned, unwearied insistence delight heaven. God would have His children incorrigibly in earnest and persistently bold in their efforts. Heaven is too busy to listen to half-hearted prayers or to respond to pop-calls. Our whole being must be in our praying.

Praying men must be strong in hope, and faith, and prayer.

Prayer, in one phase of its operation, is a disinfectant and a preventive. It purifies the air; it destroys the contagion of evil.

Prayer puts God's work in his hands-and keeps it there.

Prayer in Jesus' name puts the crowning crown on God, because it glorifies Him through the Son and it pledges the Son to give to men 'whatsoever and anything' they shall ask.

Holy living is essential preparation for prayer.

Prayer is God's plan to supply man's great and continuous need with God's great and continuous abundance.

Prayer is the lungs through which holiness breathes. Prayer is not only the language of spiritual life, but also makes its very essence and forms its real character. O for a faith that will not shrink though pressed by every foe; That will not tremble on the brink of any earthly woe. Lord, give us such a faith as this... whatever may come.

Prayer is a trade to be learned. We must be apprentices and serve our time at it. Painstaking care, much thought, practice and labour are required to be a skillful tradesman in praying. Practice in this, as well as in all other trades, makes perfect.

There is power through prayer. For many Christians, prayer is nothing special, just something we're supposed to do - go to church, tithe, read the Bible, pray. But prayer should be so much more than an item on our "to do" lists.

Private place and plenty of time are the life of prayer.