Phillips Brooks said, "Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to
be stronger people. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to
your tasks."
Robert C. Shannon, 1000 Windows, (Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard
Publishing Company, 1997).
The fewer the words, the better the prayer.
-- Martin
Luther
I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been
answered.
-- Jean
Ingelow
All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye
shall receive.
-- Matthew2l:22
And Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.
-- William
Cowper
To pray well is the better half of study.
-- Martin
Luther
Nothing costs so much as what is bought by prayers.
-- Seneca
Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.
-- S.
A. Kierkegaard
As quoted in Bob Phillips, Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts &
Funny Sayings, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1993), p.251.
As it is the business of tailors to make clothes and of cobblers
to mend shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray.
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
At the profoundest depths in life, men talk not about God but
with him.
D. Elton Trueblood (1900-)
Don't expect a thousand-dollar answer to a ten-cent prayer.
Don't let your sorrow come higher than your knees. Swedish
Proverb
Don't pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the
Lord and keep it. A man is powerful on his knees.
Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983)
Each time I pray, I fervently plea, "Lord, make me worthy To
associate with thee."
M.Joan Rardin
-Edythe Draper, Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian
World (Wheaton:
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992). Entries 8783-8786.
God is perfect love and perfect wisdom. We do not pray in order
to change his will, but to bring our wills into harmony with his.
Sir William Temple (1628-1699)
God never ceases to speak to us, but the noise of the world
without and the tumult of our passions within bewilder us and prevent us from listening to
him.
Francois Fenelon (1651-1715)
God puts his ear so closely down to your lips that he can hear
your faintest whisper. It is not God away off up yonder; it is God away down here, close
up-so close up that when you pray to him, it is more a whisper than a kiss.
Thomas De Wiff Talmage (1832-1902)
-Edythe Draper, Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian
World (Wheaton:
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992). Entries 8799-8801.
I cannot say our if religion has no room for others and their
needs.
I cannot say Father if I do not demonstrate this relationship in
my daily living.
I cannot say who art in heaven if all my interests and pursuits
are on earthly things.
I cannot say hallowed be thy name if I, who am called by his
name, am not holy.
I cannot say thy kingdom come if I am unwilling to give up my own
sovereignty and accept the righteous reign of God.
I cannot say thy will be done if I am unwilling or resentful of
having it in my life.
I cannot say in earth as it is in heaven unless I am truly ready
to give myself to his service here and now.
I cannot say give us this day our daily bread without expending
honest effort for it or by ignoring the genuine needs of my fellowmen.
I cannot say forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who
trespass against us if I continue to harbor a grudge against anyone.
I cannot say lead us not into temptation if I deliberately choose
to remain in a situation where I am likely to be tempted.
I cannot say deliver us from evil if I am not prepared to fight
in the spiritual realm with the weapon of prayer.
I cannot say thine is the kingdom if I do not give the King the
disciplined obedience of a loyal subject.
I cannot say thine is the power if I fear what my neighbors may
say or do.
I cannot say thine is the glory if I am seeking my own glory
first.
I cannot say forever if I am too anxious about each day's
affairs.
I cannot say amen unless I honestly say, "Cost what it may,
this is my prayer."
-Edythe Draper, Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian
World (Wheaton:
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992). Entry 8818.
If you want to know about God, there is only one way to do it:
Get down on your knees. The man who thinks only of himself says prayers of petition; he
who thinks of his
neighbor says prayers of intercession; he who thinks only of
loving and serving God says prayers of abandonment to God's will, and that is the prayer
of the saints.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979)
It is not that prayer changes God, or awakens in him purposes of
love and compassion that he has not already felt. No, it changes us, and therein lies its
glory and its purpose.
Hannah Hurnard (1905-1990)
It is not well for a man to
pray cream and live skim milk. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)
It is prayer, meditation, and converse with God that refreshes,
restores, and renews the temper of our minds, at all times, under all trials, after all
conflicts with the world. By this contact with the world unseen we receive continual
accesses of strength. As our day, so is our strength. Without this healing and refreshing
of spirit, duties grow to be burdens, the events of life chafe our temper, employments
lower the tone of our minds, and we become fretful, irritable, and impatient.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892)
-Edythe Draper, Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian
World (Wheaton:
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992). Entries 8855-8857.
Pray to God in the storm-but keep on rowing. Danish Proverb
Pray? Why pray?
What can praying do?
Praying really changes things, arranges life anew.
It's good for your digestion, gives peaceful sleep at night
And fills the grayest, gloomiest day-with rays of glowing light.
Helen Steiner Rice
Prayer ... the very highest energy of which the mind is capable.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
-Edythe Draper, Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian
World (Wheaton:
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992). Entries 8898-8900.
Prayer and helplessness are inseparable. Only he who is helpless
can truly pray. Your helplessness is your best prayer. It calls from your heart to the
heart of God with greater effect than all your uffered pleas.
Ole Hallesby
Prayer begins by talking to God, but it ends by listening to him.
In the face of Absolute Truith, silence is the soul's language.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979)
Prayer can do anything that God can do. Edward McKendree Bounds
(1835-1913)
Prayer catapults us onto the frontier of the spiritual life.
Richard J. Foster (1942-)
-Edythe Draper, Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian
World (Wheaton:
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992). Entries 8901-8904.
Prayer changes things? No! Prayer changes people and people
change things.
Prayer constantly enlarges our horizon and our person. It draws
us out of the narrow limits within which our habits, our past, and our whole personage
confine us.
Paul Tournier (1898-1986)
Prayer does not change God, but changes him who prays. S(3ren
Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Real prayer is simply being in the presence of God. When I am in
trouble, and when I go to my friend, I don't want anything from him except himself I just
want to be with him for a time, to feel his comradeship, his concern, his caring round me
and about me, and then to go out to a world warmer because I spent an hour with him. It
must be that way with me and God. I must go to him simply for himself
William Barclay (1907-1978)
To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to
transform us. Richard J. Foster (1942-)
When life knocks you to your knees, you're in position to pray.
God answers prayer; sometimes, when hearts
He gives the very gifts believers seek.
But often faith must learn a deeper rest,
And trust God's silence, when He does not speak;
For he whose name is Love will send the best.
Stars may burn out nor mountain walls endure,
But God is true; His promises are sure
To those who speak.
M.G. Plantz
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed-The motion of a hidden fire,
That trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near. James Montomery
THE LORD'S
PRAYER
You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and even once say
"I."
You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and even once say
"My."
Nor can you pray the Lord's Prayer and not pray for one another.
And when you ask for daily bread, you must include your brother.
For others are included... in each and every plea,
From the beginning to the end of it, it doesn't once say
"Me."
Unknown, Christian Reader, Vol.32, no.3.
MARTIN LUTHER,
LARGE CATECHISM....
"it is most necessary first to exhort and incite people to
prayer, as Christ and the apostles also have done. And the first matter is to know that it
is our duty to pray because of God's commandment. For thus we heard in the Second
Commandment:
Thou shalt not take the name of the lord, thy God, in vain, that
we are there required to praise that holy name, and call upon it in every need, or to
pray. For to call upon the name of God is nothing else than to pray. Prayer is therefore
as strictly and earnestly commanded as all other commandments: to have no other God, not
to kill, not to steal, etc."
"But praying, as the Second Commandment teaches, is to call
upon God in every need. This He requires of us, and has not left it to our choice. But it
is our duty and obligation to pray if we would be Christians, as much as it is our duty
and obligation to obey our parents and the government; for by calling upon it and praying
the name of God is honored and profitably employed. This you must note above all things,
that thereby you may silence and repel such thoughts as would keep and deter us from
prayer."
"we may silence and repel the thoughts which would keep and
deter us from praying, as though it were not of much consequence if we do not pray, or as
though it were commanded those who are holier and in better favor with God than we; as,
indeed, the human heart is by nature so despondent that it always flees from God and
imagines that He does not wish or desire our prayer, because we are sinners and have
merited nothing but wrath."
"For we allow such thoughts as these to lead us astray and deter us: I am not holy or worthy enough; if I were as godly and holy as St. Peter or St. Paul, then I would pray But put such thoughts far away, for just the same commandment which applied to St. Paul applies also to me; and the Second Commandment is given as much on my account as on his account, so that he can boast of no better or holier commandment."
MARTIN LUTHER, LARGE CATECHISM ON "THE LORD'S PRAYER"
"God does not regard prayer on account of the person, but on
account of His word and obedience thereto."
"This you can hold up to Him and say: Here I come, dear
Father, and pray, not of my own purpose nor upon my own worthiness, but at Thy commandment
and promise, which cannot fail or deceive me."
"But where there is to be a true prayer there must be
earnestness. Men must feel their distress, and such distress as presses them and compels
them to call and cry out then prayer will be made spontaneously, as it ought to be, and
men will require no teaching how to prepare for it and to attain to the proper
devotion."
"Let this be said as an exhortation, that men may learn,
first of all, to esteem prayer as something great and precious, and to make a proper
distinction between babbling and praying for something. For we by no means reject prayer,
but the bare, useless howling and murmuring we reject, as Christ Himself also rejects and
prohibits long prayers.
"The name of God is profaned by us either in words or in
works. (For whatever we do upon the earth must be either words or works, speech or act.)
In the first place, then, it is profaned when men preach, teach, and speak in the name of
God what is false and misleading, so that His name must serve to adorn and to find a
market for falsehood. That is, indeed, the greatest profanation and dishonor of the divine
name. Furthermore, also when men, by swearing, cursing, conjuring, etc., grossly abuse the
holy name as a cloak for their shame. In the second place also by an openly wicked life
and works, when those who are called Christians and the people of God are adulterers,
drunkards, misers, envious, and slanderers. Here again must the name of God come to shame
and be profaned because of us. For just as it is a shame and disgrace to a natural father
to have a bad perverse child that opposes him in words and deeds, so that on its account
he suffers contempt and reproach, so also it brings dishonor upon God"
(Matthew 6:33]: Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. For how could He allow us to
suffer want and to be straitened in temporal things when He promises that which is eternal
and imperishable?"
"Dear Father, Thy will be done, not the will of the devil and of our enemies, nor of anything that would persecute and suppress Thy holy Word or hinder Thy kingdom; and grant that we may bear with patience and overcome whatever is to be endured on that account, lest our poor flesh yield or fall away from weakness or sluggishness."