quotations about prayer
In our search for the holy, there are times when our restless preparations smother the very truth for which are searching. We decorate our rooms and make elaborate preparations for our prayer, when a single flower and a moment of waiting are all we need to meed the One Who Comes.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR
Seasons of Your Heart
Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?
CORRIE TEN BOOM
attributed, The Power of Prayer to Heal and Transform Your Life
Some men pray only when the world is dark, as owls hoot at night.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Prayer is the weary soul of Herod's dancer,
Dancing before blind kings without applause.
STELLA BENSON
This Is the End
Embark on no enterprise which you cannot submit to the test of prayer.
HOSEA BALLOU
Treasury of Thought
If a man obeys the gods they're quick to hear his prayers.
HOMER
The Iliad
To feel the supreme and moving beauty of the spectacle to which Nature invites her ephemeral guests!... that is what I call prayer.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
attributed, Claude Debussy: His Life and Works
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Young India, January 23, 1930
So I'm going to say my prayers tonight before I go to sleep. I hope you'll do the same. I believe if we do that, we'll all have less to worry about tomorrow.
BEN CARSON
Take the Risk
Any heart turned Godward feels more joy
In one short hour of prayer, than e'er was raised
By all the feasts of earth since its foundation.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus
God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as he always has. But he can't if you don't pray.
JEFFREY R. HOLLAND
Broken Things to Mend
Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.
GEORGE MEREDITH
The Ordeal of Richard Feverel
Let prayer, the most honorable, the most pleasurable, and the most beneficial of all exercises, be next our theme. In this we converse with the eternal mind, and contract a blessed familiarity with that all-glorious Being, whose favor is better than life, whose frown is worse than death. By this we taste more exquisite delights, than all the pleasures of sin can boast, than all the vanities of the world can bestow. By this every mercy is sanctified, every affliction is alleviated, every holy disposition is invigorated, every corrupt affection is weakened, and every temptation is resisted.
WILLIAM MCEWAN
"On Prayer", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
It doesn't matter how you pray--with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors.
ANNE LAMOTT
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person.
C. S. LEWIS
Fern-seeds and Elephants and Other Essays
Not in tears should we pray,
But in hope, smiling bright,
When the glory of day
Has forgotten the night!
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Pray--Not When in Tears"
My prayer begins when I remember to pray. Or maybe before then. Is there something that stirs inside, that precedes and gives rise to the thought of praying? Is it biochemistry? Is it the soul? Does the soul long to touch and be touched by its source?
RICHARD CHESS
"My Prayer Is Not Prayer", Patheos, May 11, 2016
Prayer is not optional for the Christian; it is required. We might ask, "What if it doesn't do anything?" That is not the issue. Regardless of whether prayer does any good, if God commands us to pray, we must pray. It is reason enough that the Lord God of the universe, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, commands it.
R. C. SPROUL
"If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?", Ligonier Ministries, September 14, 2016
Prayer is not to get God to change His will. If we really believe that the will of God is perfect, then why would we want Him to change it?
DAVID JEREMIAH
"4 Questions Answered on the Importance of Prayer"
Suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? "Well, it's God's will." "Thy will be done." Fine, but if it's God's will, and He's going to do what He wants to anyway, why the f*** bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to His will? It's all very confusing.
GEORGE CARLIN
You Are All Diseased