Quotes About Prayer

The great people of the earth today are the people who pray. I do not mean those who talk about prayer, nor those who say they believe in prayer, nor yet those who can explain about prayer; but I mean these people who take time and pray. They have not time. It must be taken from something else. This something else is important, very important, and pressing, but still less important and less pressing than prayer. There are people that put prayer first, and group the other items in life's schedule around and after prayer.

Prayer is first of all listening to God. It's openness. God is always speaking; he's always doing something. Prayer is to enter into that activity... Convert your thoughts into prayer. As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer. The difference is not that prayer is thinking about other things, but that prayer is thinking in dialogue,... a conversation with God.

The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word. He prayed the Psalter and now it has become his prayer for all time...we understand how the Psalter can be prayer to God and yet God's own Word, precisely because here we encounter the praying Christ...because those who pray the psalms are joining in with the prayer of Jesus Christ, their prayer reaches the ears of God. Christ has become their intercessor.

I would love to have a more earnest prayer life! In my life, prayer is the single most difficult discipline. I love God and there's something in me that would rather do things for God than talk to God. I'm not by nature a mystical, devotional person. I like to do things. And so it's a challenge for me to have a faithful prayer life, but I know God loves me and He's not mad at me. He just wishes I would slow down and turn things over to Him. And that's what I think you achieve through prayer.

It can happen that when we are at prayer some brothers come to see us. Then we have to choose either to interrupt our prayer or to sadden our brother by refusing to answer him. But love is greater than prayer. Prayer is one virtue among others, whereas love contains them all.

There are some people who, in order not to pray use as an excuse the fact that life is so hectic that it prevents us from praying. This cannot be. Prayer does not demand that we interrupt our work, but that we continue working as if it were a prayer. It is not necessary to always be in meditation, nor to consciously experience the sensation that we are talking to God, no matter how nice that would be. What matters is being with Him, living in Him, in His will. To love with a pure heart, to love everybody, especially to live the poor, is a twenty-four hour prayer.

When my children were growing up, we began every family meal - which included breakfast and dinner every day - with a prayer. We are Jewish and so it was the prayer over bread, when we were having bread, or the catch-all prayer for everything when we weren't.

If you surrender yourself, and do not rush, but meditate on the Word of God, you will find prayer forming in your heart. It is a prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit, a prayer that God will be pleased to hear.

Sincerity is the same in a corner alone, as it is before the face of the world. It knows not how to wear two vizards, one for an appearance before men, and another for a short snatch in a corner; but it must have God, and be with him in the duty of prayer. It is not lip-labour that it doth regard, for it is the heart that God looks at, and that which sincerity looks at, and that which prayer comes from, if it be that prayer which is accompanied with sincerity.

Sometimes I'm asked to list the most important steps in preparing for an evangelistic mission, and my reply is always the same: prayer... prayer... prayer.

Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say, "I will endure this until I can get away and pray." Pray now - draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God's grace through prayer.

The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God.

Astraeus,' Aven called out. 'God of the four winds and friend to sailors. Say a little prayer when you look at him, so he will give us what we need to keep our course.' A little prayer?' said Jack. 'To a constellation?' To what it represents,' said Aven. But I don't believe in what it represents,' said Jack. Prayers aren't for the deity,' said Aven. 'They're for you, to recommit yourself to what you believe.' Can't you do that without praying to a dead Greek god?' Sure,' said Aven. 'But how often would anyone do that, if not in prayer?

The kind of prayer I am talking about is a detached kind of prayer in which you are not looking for anything, just putting yourself in God's presence and sharing with him what you are feeling or what you are suffering. It is the kind of prayer in which you just open your heart to God and say, "God, I'm here. I'm not asking for anything, God. I just want to be near you and open my heart to you."

The sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.

Not prayer without faith, nor faith without prayer, but prayer in faith, is the cost of spiritual gifts and graces.

If it is God who gives prayer, then God often gives it in the form of gratitude, and gratitude itself, when it is received attentively in prayer, is healing to the heart. Prayer is such a mysterious business for something so ordinary and everyday.

When I was in my early 20s I converted to Catholicism after a long period of searching. What I think drew me to the Catholic church is that in Catholicism, prayer suffuses all of one's life by virtue of the sacraments. Prayer is not something which occurs just on Sunday, it doesn't occur only at particular moments of intensity or by particular conventions, one's whole life is given up to prayer in many, many modes. And so everything to do with the faith is trying to put you in relationship with God and trying to make that relationship grow deeper and more mature.

Negligence in prayer withers the inner man. Nothing can be a substitute for it, not even Christian work. Many are so preoccupied with work that they allow little time for prayer. Hence they cannot cast out demons. Prayer enables us first inwardly to overcome the enemy and then outwardly to deal with him.

When a church is truly convinced that prayer is where the action is, that church will so construct its corporate activities that the prayer program will have the highest priority.

I have been challenged by the concept of meditation ... I decided recently to accept the invitation of a friend to experience the sheer silence of meditation-undirected prayer. ... I had before only sensed intellectually ... But by going deep into prayer I could almost feel it.

What does it say about our churches today that God birthed the church in a prayer meeting, and prayer meetings today are almost extinct?

The history of missions is a history of prayer. Everything vital to the success of the world's evangelization hinges on prayer.

Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home: the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home.

My love for prayer was an answer to prayer.

I don't think there's such a thing as a selfish prayer. Prayer puts you in communication so you can talk about whatever you want to talk about.

He may delay because it would not be safe to give us at once what we ask: we are not ready for it. To give ere we could truly receive, would be to destroy the very heart and hope of prayer, to cease to be our Father. The delay itself may work to bring us nearer to our help, to increase the desire, perfect the prayer, and ripen the receptive condition.

A prayer may chance to rise From one whose heart lives in the grace of God. A prayer from any other is unheeded.

The entire day receives order and discipline when it acquires unity. This unity must be sought and found in morning prayer. The morning prayer determines the day.

Prayer as it comes from the saint is weak and languid; but when the arrow of a saint's prayer is put into the bow of Christ's intercession it pierces the throne of grace.

Be aware, and wine becomes water. Be aware - sex becomes love. Be aware - love becomes prayer. Be aware - prayer becomes meditation. Simply one thing has to be remembered: do whatsoever you like, but do it with full consciousness, and then you will not go astray.

True praying has the largest results for good; and poor praying, the least. We cannot do too much of real praying; we cannot do too little of the sham. We must learn anew the worth of prayer, enter anew the school of prayer. There is nothing which it takes more time to learn.

Supply does not come through prayer. It comes as a result of an attitude of faith, a condition of mind and heart, in which the Invisible is depended upon for all things necessary, instead of upon the visible and earthly. Prayer in the form of begging and beseeching God to kindly answer our requests is not capable of producing supply in itself.

Prayer is not a painful effort to gain from God help in the varying needs of life. Prayer is the desire to possess God Himself

Work is prayer. Work is also stink. Therefore stink is prayer.

Prayer without study would be empty. Study without prayer would be blind.

Prayer continues to provide power--spiritual power. Prayer continues to provide peace--spiritual peace.

No problem is too small for His attention nor so large that He cannot answer the prayer of faith. Prayer surely is the passport to spiritual power.

Persistence in prayer brings results that casual prayer does not.

Prayer is always acceptable to God when dictated by the heart, for the intention is everything in his sight; and the prayer of the heart is preferable to one read from a book, however beautiful it may be, if read with the lips rather than with the thought.

Prayer lays hold of God's plan and becomes the link between His will and its accomplishment on earth. Amazing things happen, and we are given the privilege of being the channels of the Holy Spirit's prayer.

Assume the attitude of prayer, and in time, the attitude will become prayer.

With every movie, we will spend a season of prayer just asking God what's on his heart, and we spent about a year, two years, in prayer, trying to figure out the direction for the next film.

Nothing is more important than honesty in prayer. There are no pretensions in prayer, so the best place to begin is wherever you are.

Prayer is not a substitute for work, thinking, watching, suffering, or giving; prayer is a support for all other efforts.

Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend. Not that it is necessary in order to make known to God what we are, but in order to enable us to receive Him. Prayer does not bring God down to us, but brings us up to Him.

I've always believed in the power of prayer. One prayer can accomplish more than a thousand plans. That isn't a magic formula, but it's an idea that if you pray, keep praying and then praying some more.

Neglecting to bathe the ministry in prayer leaves us just workers, not worshipers. When we unite in prayer, there is incredible power.