A12.12 – WHAT SOME PEOPLE SAID ABOUT PRAYERS

1. Sometimes God answers our prayers in the way our parents do, who reply to the pleas of their children with “Not just now” or “I’ll have to think about that for a little while.” -Pearson

2. Prayer is the soul getting into contact with the God in whom it believes. -Fosdick

3. Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night. -Fuller

4. Between the humble and contrite heart and the majesty of heaven there are no barriers; the only password is prayer. -Ballou

5. Pray unto Him in any way you like. He is sure to hear you, for He can hear even the footfall of an ant. -Ramakrishna

6. Prayer requires more of the heart than of the tongue. -Clarke

7. When thou prayest, rather let thy heart be without words than thy words without heart. -Bunyan

8. I used to pray that God would do this or that. Now I pray that God will make His will known to me. -Chiang Kai-shek

9. Prayer is the breath of faith. Prayer meetings are the lungs of the church. -Spurgeon

10. Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees. -Cowper

11. No man ever prayed heartily without learning something. -Emerson

12. Let us be silent that we may hear the whisper of God. -Emerson

13. God may not always answer prayers, but he always answers people. -Anonymous

14. God is not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can press a button to get things. -Fosdick

15. Prayer is the voice of faith. -Horne

16. Neglect of private prayer is the locust that devours the strength of the church. -Spurgeon

17. A prayer, in its simplest definition, is merely a wish turned heavenward. -Brooks

18. He prays well who is so absorbed with God that he does not know he is praying. – Francis of de Sales

19. Work as if you were to live 100 years; pray as if you were to die tomorrow. -Franklin

20. So a good prayer, though often used, is still fresh and fair in the ears and eyes of Heaven. -Fuller

21. Our prayer and God’s mercy are like two buckets in a well; while the one ascends the other descends. -Hopkins

22. Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees. -Hugo

23. To saints their very slumber is a prayer. – Jerome

24. Prayer is exhaling the spirit of man and inhaling the spirit of God. -Keith

25. There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him. -Law

26. If Christians spent as much time praying as they do grumbling, they would soon have nothing to grumble about. -Anonymous

27. We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another. -Law

28. Spread out your petition before God, and then say, “Thy will, not mine be done.” The sweetest lesson I have learned in God’s school is to let the Lord choose for me. -Moody

29. Prayer is not merely an occasional impulse to which we respond when we are in trouble: prayer is a life attitude. -Mueller

30. Nothing is so beautiful as a child going to sleep while he is saying his prayers. -Peguy

31. The most important thing in any prayer is not what we say to God, but what God says to us. We are apt to pray and then hurry away without giving God a chance to answer. -North Carolina Christian Advocate

32. Prayer is not eloquence but earnestness. -More

33. Prayer is the chief agency and activity whereby men align themselves with God’s purpose. Prayer does not consist in battering the walls of heaven for personal benefits or the success of our plans. Rather it is the committing of ourselves for the carrying out of His purposes. It is a telephone call to headquarters for orders. It is not bending God’s will to ours, but our will to God’s. In prayer, we tap vast reservoirs of spiritual power whereby God can find fuller entrance into the hearts of men. -Oldham

34. We must remember that “No” can be an answer to prayer. -Pinson

35. Sometimes God delays the answer to our prayer in final form until we have time to build up the strength, accumulate the knowledge, or fashion the character that would make it possible for Him to say “yes” to what we ask. -Pearson

36. Prayer is the God-ward reach of a man’s soul. -Radcliffe

37. Prayer is the grandest power in the entire universe, it has a more omnipotent force than electricity, attraction, gravitation, or any other of those other secret forces which men have called by mane, but which they do not understand. -Spurgeon

38. The deepest wishes of the heart find expression in secret prayer. -Rees

39. Prayer is a means of adding power to the strength we already possess. Sometimes we know what is right, but we lack the will power to do it. -Stock

40. All our strength lies in prayer! -Spurgeon

41. Where God leads you to pray, he means you to receive. -Spurgeon

42. Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us. -Socrates

43. If any of you should ask me for an epitome of the Christian religion, I should say it is in that one word-prayer. -Spurgeon

44. To me it is a boundless solace that I live in the prayers of thousands. We can do better without the voice that preaches than without the heart that prays. The petitions of our bedridden sisters are the wealth of the Church. -Spurgeon

45. I would rather be the Master of the Art of Prayer than MA of both Oxford and Cambridge. He who knows how to pray has his hand on the leverage that moves the universe. -Spurgeon

46. Prayer is the ascent of the mind to God. –Taylor

47. Pray as if everything depended on God, and work as if everything depended upon man. -Spellman

48. I have seen enough in my own lifetime to fill a volume concerning the goodness of the Lord in answer to his children’s prayers. -Spurgeon

49. God the Holy Spirit writes our prayers, God the Son presents our prayers and God the Father accepts our prayers. And with the whole Trinity to help us in it, what cannot prayer perform? -Spurgeon

50. The Lord does not play at promising. Jesus did not sport at confirming the word by his blood, and we must not make a jest of prayer by going about it in a listless, un-expecting spirit. -Spurgeon

51. To pray together, in whatever tongue or ritual, is the most tender brotherhood of hope and sympathy that men can contract in this life. – Stael

52. If Christ Himself needed to retire from time to time to the mountain-top to pray, lesser men need not be ashamed to acknowledge that necessity. -Spurgeon