Prayer

Yesterday was the beginning of a time of prayer for our church. Tonight, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night we'll be meeting together to listen to sermons on prayer, and spend time in prayer. We do this every January - it's a tradition Pastor learned when he was a missionary in Eastern Europe.

The messages yesterday really spoke to my heart. I cannot sum up everything the Lord is teaching me, but much of it is expressed in these quotes that I found online today (The ones I highlighted are the ones that especially pertain to the things I am hearing and the thoughts I am having.):

Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work. --Oswald Chambers

Prayer is not so much an act as it is an attitude—an attitude of dependency, dependency upon God. --Arthur W. Pink

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. --Brother Lawrence

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. -- John Bunyan

The true spirit of prayer is no other than God's own Spirit dwelling in the hearts of the saints. And as this spirit comes from God, so doth it naturally tend to God in holy breathings and pantings. It naturally leads to God, to converse with him by prayer. --Jonathan Edwards

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

Rich is the person who has a praying friend. --Janice Hughes

Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means for getting something for ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. --Oswald Chambers

If you are sick, fast and pray; if the language is hard to learn, fast and pray; if the people will not hear you, fast and pray, if you have nothing to eat, fast and pray. - Frederick Franson

Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons; but they are helpless against our prayers. --J. Sidlow Baxter

Why is it so important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It's important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you "my beloved daughter," "my beloved son," "my beloved child." To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being. --Henri Nouwen

So when we sing, 'Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,' we are not thinking of the nearness of place, but of the nearness of relationship. It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence. We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts. --A.W. Tozer

The Church has not yet touched the fringe of the possibilities of intercessory prayer. Her largest victories will be witnessed when individual Christians everywhere come to recognize their priesthood unto God and day by day give themselves unto prayer. --John R. Mott

I must secure more time for private devotions. I have been living far too public for me. The shortening of devotions starves the soul, it grows lean and faint. I have been keeping too late hours. --William Wilberforce

How different the world would look, how different the state of our nation would be, if there were more sanctified priestly souls! These are souls who have the power to bless, for they intercede with sanctified hearts. They never begin their daily time of intercessory prayer without having first brought to the cross all that is unholy in their lives, so that their old self can be crucified there with Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb. –Basilea Schlink

The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men…Men of prayer." --E. M. Bounds

Pray, and let God worry. -- Martin Luther

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, pray for powers equal to your task. --Phillips Brooks

This is our Lord's will... that our prayer and our trust be, alike, large.-- Julian of Norwich

If you can't pray a door open, don't pry it open.-- Lyell Rader

God's answers are wiser than our prayers. –Unknown

There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers. --Teresa of Avila

God does not delay to hear our prayers because He has no mind to give; but that, by enlarging our desires, He may give us the more largely. --Anselm of Canterbury

We waste most of our time trying to get God to do something He has already done—or praying for God to do something He told us to do. --Jacquelyn K. Heasley

If God will do whatever He wishes, regardless of whether we pray or not, then we do not need to pray at all, and the Lord's instructions on praying for the Kingdom and the Will are superfluous. But the truth is that God waits for a Remnant to rise up and to pray in agreement with His Purpose before He does anything - He will do nothing apart from the Church. Apart from HIM, we CAN do nothing; apart from US, He WILL do nothing –Chip Brogden

Those who do not believe do not pray. This is a good functional definition of faith. Faith prays, unbelief does not. --John A. Hardon

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

The Third Petition of the Lord's Prayer is repeated daily by millions who have not the slightest intention of letting anyone's will be done but their own.--Aldous Huxley

Is the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him?....Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray. --Oswald Chambers

Those who know God the best are the richest and most powerful in prayer. Little acquaintance with God, and strangeness and coldness to Him, make prayer a rare and feeble thing. --E. M. Bounds

How often have we prayed something like, "O Lord, be with cousin Billy now in a special way"? Have we stopped to consider what it is we're requesting? Imagine that you are a parent who is preparing to leave your children with a babysitter. Would you dream of saying, "O Betsy, I ask you now that you would be with my children in a special way?" No way. You would say, "Betsy, the kids need to be in bed by 9 pm. They can have one snack before their baths, and please make sure they finish their homework. You can reach us at this number if there's any problem. Any questions before we go?" We are very specific with our requests and instructions for our babysitters. We want them to know specifics. It should be no different with prayer. --David Jeremiah

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. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon

When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy. --Corrie Ten Boom

When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't pray, they don't. --William Temple

Faith in a prayer-hearing God will make a prayer-loving Christian. --Andrew Murray

Always respond to every impulse to pray. The impulse to pray may come when you are reading or when you are battling with a text. I would make an absolute law of this – always obey such an impulse. --Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Wishing will never be a substitute for prayer. --Ed Cole

One can believe intellectually in the efficacy of prayer and never do any praying. --Catherine Marshall

Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?-- Corrie Ten Boom

Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan --John Bunyan

Of all the duties enjoined by Christianity none is more essential and yet more neglected than prayer. --François Fénelon

I have so much to do that I spend several hours in prayer before I am able to do it.—John Wesley

Some people pray just to pray and some people pray to know God. --Andrew Murray

There is a mighty lot of difference between saying prayers and praying. --John G. Lake