Prayer Quotes - Page 124

Many people have found prayer impossible because they thought they should only pray for wonderful but remote needs they actually had little or no interest in or even knowledge of. Prayer simply dies from efforts to pray about ‘good things’ that honestly do not matter to us. The way to get to meaningful prayer for those good things is to start by praying for what we are truly interested in. The circle of our interests will inevitably grow in the largeness of God’s love.

It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.

Even a man who's pure in heart And says his prayers by night, May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms And the autumn moon is bright.

God, once imagined to be an omnipresent force throughout the whole world of nature and man. has been increasingly tending to seem omniabsent. Everywhere, intelligent and educated people rely more and more on purely secular and scientific techniques for the solution of their problems. As science advances, belief in divine miracles and the efficacy of prayer becomes fainter and fainter.

Prayer is the key discipline whereby all spiritual work is done.

-The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other but to be with each other. -The Hopis consider running a form of prayer; they offer every step as a sacrifice to a loved one, and in return ask the Great Spirit to match their strength with some of his own.

We may expect answers to prayer, and should not be easy without them any more than we should be if we had written a letter to a friend upon important business, and had received no reply.

There is a general kind of praying which fails for lack of precision. It is as if a regiment of soldiers should all fire off their guns anywhere. Possibly somebody would be killed, but the majority of the enemy would be missed.

Remember, Christ's scholars must study upon their knees.

So the preacher of the gospel asks your prayers: and it is a part of the duties arising out of the relationship between Christian men that those who are taught should pray for those who teach God's Word.

Prayer is the thermometer of grace.

I often had to run very quickly to be on time, and from being a fleet runner was generally successful; but when in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember that I attributed my success to the prayers and not to my quick running, and marvelled how generally I was aided.

God will excuse our prayers for ourselves whenever we are prevented from them by being occupied in such good works as to entitle us to the prayers of others.

The tea-kettle is as much an English institution as aristocracy or the Prayer-Book.

To feel the suffering and then to know the pain of the unnecessariness of it. That right there has me in its grip. The only way through that is serious prayer. I can't get through it any other way. I've got to believe that that's making a difference somehow. I can't see the difference, but I've got to believe it does, because in some way it lets me sleep at night. My only other alternative is to become angry, and I can't go that direction.

I prefer a kind of sweet, deep, rich prayer in which a person goes in and says, Take me down deep into the reason you gave me life. Take me down deep. It silences the chaos in me.

She stood upon a continent of ice, which sparkled between sea and sky, endless and dazzling, as though the world kept all its treasure there; a scale which balanced poetry and prayer.

You may pray for an hour and still not pray. You may meet God for a moment and then be in touch with Him all day.

Imagination must constantly run on a new track or it becomes lifeless. A living imagination is essential to prayer.

A concentrated mind and a sitting body make for better prayer than a kneeling body and a mind half asleep.

For prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted.

Many people think their prayers are never answered because it is the answered ones they forget.

I have quitted all forms of devotion and set prayers but those to which my state obliges me. And I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence, wherein I keep myself by a simple attention, and a general fond regard to GOD, which I may call an actual presence of GOD, or, to speak better, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with GOD, which often causes me joys and raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, so great that I am forced to use means to moderate them, and prevent their appearance to others.

The Prince of the power of the air seems to bend all the force of his attack against the spirit of prayer.

I never pray on a golf course. Actually, the Lord answers my prayers everywhere except on the course.