Prayer: Quotations from Burning Words
True prayer is an earnest soul's direct converse with its God.— T. L. CUYLER
A prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward.— PHILLIPS BROOKS
Prayer is the breath of a new-born soul, and there can be no Christian life without it..— ROWLAND HILL
True prayer is only another name for the love of God. Its excellence does not consist in the multitude of our words; for our Father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask Him. The true prayer is that of the heart, and the heart prays only for what it desires. To pray, then, is to desire but to desire what God would have us desire.— FENELON
A life of prayer is a life whose litanies are ever fresh acts of self-devoting love.— F. W. ROBERTSON
Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies.— WESTMINSTER CATECHISM
Worship is the earthly act by which we most distinctly recognize our personal immortality; men who think that they will be extinct a few years hence do not pray. In worship we spread out our insignificant life, which yet is the work of the Creator's hands, and the purchase of the Redeemer's blood, before the Eternal and All-Merciful, that we may learn the manners of a higher sphere, and fit ourselves for companionship with saints and angels, and for the everlasting sight of the face of God.— H. P. LIDDON
Prayer is not conquering God's reluctance, but taking hold upon God's willingness.— PHILLIPS BROOKS
- Prayer is the act by which man, detaching himself from the embarrassments of sense and nature, ascends to the true level of his destiny.— H. P. LIDDON
Prayer is so mighty an instrument that no one ever thoroughly mastered all its keys. They sweep along the infinite scale of man's wants and God's goodness.— HUGH MILLER
Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul. -— HANNAH MORE
Prayer, then, does not consist in sweet feelings, nor in the charms of an excited imagination, nor in that illumination of the intellect that traces with ease the sublimest truths of God; nor even in a certain consolation in the view of God; all these things are external gifts from His hand, in the absence of which love may exist even more purely, as the soul may then attach itself immediately and solely to God, instead of to His mercies.— FENELON
Prayer is the pulse of the renewed soul; and the constancy of its beat is the test and measure of the spiritual life.— OCTAVIUS WINSLOW
The best and sweetest flowers of paradise God gives to His people when they are upon their knees. Prayer is the gate of heaven.— THOMAS BROOKS
We lay it down as an elemental principle of religion, that no large growth in holiness was ever gained by one who did not take time to be often and long alone with God. No otherwise can the great central idea of God enter into a man's life, and dwell there supreme.— AUSTIN PHELPS
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. Cease not to pray; On Jesus as your all rely.— P. J. BAILEY
Would you live happy happy die ; Take time to pray. A good man's prayers Will from the deepest dungeon climb to heaven's height, And bring a blessing down.— JOANNA BAILIE
Prayer moves the hand which moves the world.— J. A. WALLACE
Consider how august a privilege it is, when angels are present, and archangels throng around, when cherubim and seraphim encircle with their blaze the throne, that a mortal may approach with unrestrained confidence, and converse with heaven's dread Sovereign! O, what honor was ever conferred like this?— CHRYSOSTOM
Our prayers are ships. We send them to no uncertain port. They are destined for the throne of grace; and while they take a cargo of supplications from us, they come back argosies laden with the riches of Divine grace. Prayer pulls the rope below, and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly; others give but an occasional pluck at the rope; but he who wins with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously, with all his might.— C. H. SPURGEON
O Thou by whom we come to God - The Life, the Truth, the Way; The path of prayer Thyself hast trod; Lord, teach us how to pray.— J. MONTGOMERY
When we pray to God with entire assurance, it is Himself who has given us the spirit of prayer.— ST. CYPRIAN
In presenting the Divine promises at the throne of grace, we present the best of names at a bank that is solvent. Let us, when we would pray, consider well whether we have a promise for our plea.— R. M. OFFORD
Let faith each meek petition fill, And waft it to the skies; And teach our heart 'tis goodness still That grants it or denies.— J. D. CARLYLE
A certain joyful, though humble, confidence becomes us when we pray in the Mediator's name. It is due to Him; when we pray in His name it should be without wavering. Remember His merits, and how prevalent they must be. "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace."— NEHEMIAH ADAMS
Good prayers never come creeping home. I am sure I shall receive what I ask for or what I should ask.— BISHOP HALL
For spiritual blessings, let our prayers be importunate, perpetual, and persevering; for temporal blessings, let them be general, short, conditional, and modest.— JEREMY TAYLOR
The prayer that begins with trustfulness, and passes on into waiting, even while in sorrow and sore need, will always end in thankfulness and triumph and praise.— ALEXANDER MACLAREN
Be not afraid to pray - to pray is right. Pray if thou canst with hope; but ever pray, Though hope be weak or sick with long delay; Pray in the darkness, if there be no light. -— HARTLEY COLERIDGE
Ah, what is it we send up thither, where our thoughts are either a dissonance or a sweetness and a grace?— GEORGE MACDONALD
Patience and perseverance are never more thoroughly Christian graces than when features of prayer.— S. IRENÆUS PRIME
Are we to suppose that the only being in the universe who cannot answer prayer is that One who alone has all power at His command? The weak theology that professes to believe that prayer has merely a subjective benefit is infinitely less scientific than the action of the child who confidently appeals to a Father in heaven.— PROF. DAWSON
Cold prayers shall never have any warm answers. God will suit His returns to our requests. Lifeless services shall have lifeless answers. When men are dull, God will be dumb.— THOMAS BROOKS
Ah! well it is for us that God is a loving Father, who takes our very prayers and thanksgivings rather for what we mean than for what they are; just as parents smile on the trailing weeds that their ignorant little ones bring them for flowers.— EDWARD GARRETT
Then let us earnest be, And never faint in prayer; He loves our importunity, And makes our cause His care.— JOHN NEWTON
Expect an answer. If no answer is desired, why pray? True prayer has in it a strong element of expectancy.— R. M. OFFORD
How can He grant you what you do not desire to receive?— ST. AUGUSTINE
Easiness of desire is a great enemy to the success of a good man's prayer. Our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg tamely for those things for which we ought to die; which are more precious than imperial sceptres, richer than the spoils of the sea or the treasures of Indian hills.— JEREMY TAYLOR
The reason why we obtain no more in prayer, is because we expect no more. God usually answers us according to our own hearts.— RICHARD ALLEINE
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; Words without thoughts never to heaven go.— SHAKSPEARE
Every prayer is a wish, but wishes are not prayers. In the heart of every prayer is a sense of need, but a sense of need is not prayer. Prayer is asking for a felt need; not asking the Universe, but God. No one can intelligently ask who does not believe that he can and may be heard. No one can perseveringly ask, who thinks that asking will bring nothing. Persons who believe that the whole influence of prayer is simply the effect of their own thoughts upon themselves, never pray. They cannot pray. The mouth may utter right words; the heart is not in them. Some prayers are not prayers, for those who say them do not really wish for the things they mention. But the difficulty with most prayers is that there is no grasp of the idea of God - there is no asking. "Ask, and ye shall receive."— THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE
There is much seeking for God that does not amount to searching for Him with all the heart. There is much praying, and too little prayer. There are many petitions, but too little expectation. There is too reckless a rushing into the presence of God, and too little patient waiting to hear what He will speak. True prayer has to do directly with the infinitely high and holy God; and true prayer ever finds Him, and in finding Him gets all that Divine wisdom and love can bestow upon the seeker, consistently with God's glory and the creature's highest good.— THE CHRISTIAN INTELLIGENCER
He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small : For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all,— COLERIDGE
He that loveth little prayeth little; he that loveth much prayeth much.— ST. AUGUSTINE
O Lord, we rejoice that we are Thy making, though Thy handiwork is not very clear in our outer man as yet. We bless Thee that we feel Thy hand making us. What if it be in pain? Evermore we hear the voice of the potter above the hum and grind of His wheel. Father, Thou only knowest how we love Thee. Fashion the clay to Thy beautiful will.— GEORGE MACDONALD
Like an echo from a ruined castle, prayer is an echo from the ruined human soul of the sweet promise of God.— WM. ARNOT
He who has a pure heart will never cease to pray; and he who will be constant in prayer, shall know what it is to have a pure heart.— LA COMBE
As in poetry, so in prayer, the whole subject matter should be furnished by the heart, and the understanding should be allowed only to shape and arrange the effusions of the heart in the manner best adapted to answer the end designed. From the fullness of a heart overflowing with holy affections, as from a copious fountain, we should pour forth a torrent of pious, humble, and ardently affectionate feelings; while our understandings only shape the channel and teach the gushing streams of devotion where to flow, and when to stop.— EDWARD PAYSON
Continuing instant in prayer." The Greek is a metaphor taken from hunting dogs that never give over the game till they have got their prey.— THOMAS BROOKS
Have you never observed how free the Lord's Prayer is of any material that can tempt to subtle self-inspection in the art of devotion? It is full of an outflowing of thought and of emotion toward great objects of desire, great necessities, and great perils.— AUSTIN PHELPS
For "we know not what we should pray for as we ought;" but love leads us on, abandons us to all the operations of grace, puts us entirely at the disposal of God's will, and thus prepares us for all His designs.— FENELON
Not what we wish, but what we want, O let Thy grace supply : The good, unasked, in mercy grant, The ill, though asked, deny. There is something in every act of prayer that for a time stills the violence of passion, and elevates and purifies the affections.— JEREMY TAYLOR
When Christ went up into a mountain apart to pray, He dismissed the multitude, to teach us that when we address ourselves to God, we must first dismiss the multitude. We must send away the multitude of worldly cares, worldly thoughts, worldly concerns and business, when we would call upon God in duty.— BURKITT
- Prayers born out of murmuring are always dangerous. When, therefore, we are in a discontented mood, let us take care what we cry for, lest God give it to us, and thereby punish us.— WM. M. TAYLOR
I think that if we would, every evening, come to our Master's feet, and tell Him where we have been, what we have done, what we have said, and what were the motives by which we have been actuated, it would have a salutary effect upon our whole conduct.— EDWARD PAYSON
Prayer is so necessary, and the source of so many blessings, that he who has discovered the treasure cannot be prevented from having recourse to it, whenever he has an opportunity.— FENELON
Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language, or music without atmosphere.— JAMES MARTINEAU
There is no burden of the spirit but is lightened by kneeling under it. Little by little, the bitterest feelings are sweetened by the mention of them in prayer. And agony itself stops swelling, if we can only cry sincerely, "My God, my God!"— Wm. MOUNTFORD
Lord! Thou art with Thy people still; they see Thee in the night-watches, and their hearts burn within them as Thou talkest with them by the way. And Thou art near to those that have not known Thee; open their eyes that they may see Thee - see Thee weeping over them, and saying, "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life"- see Thee hanging on the cross and saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"- see Thee as Thou wilt come again in Thy glory to judge them at the last. Amen.— GEORGE ELIOT
Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer, and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble.— MELANCHTHON
Prayer, with our Lord, was a refuge from the storm; almost every word He uttered during that last tremendous scene was prayer; prayer the most earnest, the most urgent, repeated, continued, proceeding from the recesses of the soul, private, solitary; prayer for deliverance, prayer for strength; above every thing prayer for resignation.— WILLIAM PALEY
By Thine agony and bloody sweat; by Thy cross and passion; by Thy precious death and burial; by Thy glorious resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost, good Lord, deliver us.— BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
From coldness to Thy merits and death, from error and misunderstanding, from the loss of our glory in Thee, from the unhappy desire of becoming great, from self-complacency, from untimely projects, from needless perplexity, from the murmuring spirit and devices of Satan, from the influence of the spirit of this world, from hypocrisy and fanaticism, from the deceitfulness of sin - preserve us, gracious Lord!— MORAVIAN LITANY
We kneel, how weak; we rise, how full of power! Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong, Or others - that we are not always strong, That we are ever overborne with care, That we should ever weak or heartless be, Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?— TRENCH
We shall all find, by and by, that the most natural thing in the world for all wisdom to do is to sit at the feet of Christ, and ask for that which nothing else than prayer can compass. I have been driven many times to my knees, by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.— ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The Divine Wisdom has given us prayer, not as a means whereby to obtain the good things of earth, but as a means whereby we learn to do without them ; not as a means whereby we escape evil, but as a means whereby we become strong to meet it.— F. W. ROBERTSON
Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.— JOHN BUNYAN
The church converteth the whole world by blood and prayer.— MARTIN LUTHER
Happy are they who freely mingle prayer and toil till God responds to the one and rewards the other.— S. IRENÆUS PRIME
From the violence and rule of passion, from a servile will, and a commanding lust, from pride and vanity, from false opinion and ignorant confidence; from improvidence and prodigality, from envy and the spirit of slander; from sensuality, from presumption and from despair; from a state of temptation and a hardened spirit; from delaying of repentance and persevering in sin; from unthankfulness and irreligion, and from seducing others; from all infatuation of soul, folly, and madness; from willfulness, self-love, and vain ambition; from a vicious life and an unprovided death, good Lord, deliver us.— JEREMY TAYLOR
Faithful prayer always implies correlative exertion; and no man can ask honestly and hopefully to be delivered from temptation, unless he has himself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out of it.— JOHN RUSKIN
Whatever we are directed to pray for, we are also exhorted to work for; we are not permitted to mock Jehovah, asking that of Him which we deem not worth our pains to acquire.— E. L. MAGOON
Prayer was never meant to be a substitute for labor - an easy way of throwing our responsibilities upon God. The old classic story of the teamster whose cart stuck in the mud, and who fell to crying to Hercules for help instead of using effort himself, and was told by the god he invoked to put his own shoulder to the wheel, shows that even a heathen mind could see that faith was never meant to exclude works. When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life; every petition to God is a precept to man.— JEREMY TAYLOR
Sometimes a fog will settle over a vessel's deck and yet leave the topmast clear. Then a sailor goes up aloft and gets a lookout which the helmsman on deck cannot get. So prayer sends the soul aloft ; lifts it above the clouds in which our selfishness and egotism befog us, and gives us a chance to see which way to steer.— C. H. SPURGEON
Every praying Christian will find that there is no Gethsemane without its angel.— BINNEY
Not every hour, nor every day, perhaps, can generous wishes ripen into kind actions; but there is not a moment that cannot be freighted with prayer.— Wm. MOUNTFORD
Ejaculations are short prayers darted up to God on emergent occasions. They are the artillery of devotion, and their principal use is against the fiery darts of the devil.— THOMAS FULLER
I like ejaculatory prayer; it reaches heaven before the devil can get a shot at it.— ROWLAND HILL
When does the building of the Spirit really begin to appear in a man's heart? It begins, so far as we can judge, when he first pours out his heart to God in prayer.— J. C. RYLE
There is nothing about which a young Christian should be more anxious than maintaining the spirit, the love, the practice of private prayer; and nothing which should more seriously alarm him than any disposition to neglect it.— JOHN ANGEL JAMES
There it is - in such patient silence - that we accumulate the inward power which we distribute and spend in action; that the soul acquires a greater and more vigorous being, and gathers up its collective forces to bear down upon the piecemeal difficulties of life and scatter them to dust; there alone can we enter into that spirit of self-abandonment by which we take up the cross of duty, however heavy, with feet however worn and bleeding.— WAYLAND HOYT
Private prayer is so far from being a hindrance to a man's business, that it is the way of ways to bring down a blessing from heaven upon it.— THOMAS BROOKS
If any prayer be a duty, then secret prayer must be superla. tively so, for it prepares and fits the soul for all other supplication.— THOMAS BROOKS
A house without family worship has neither foundation nor covering.— J. M. MASON
Wise is that Christian parent who begins every morning with the word of God and fervent prayer.— T. L. CUYLER
Let family worship be short, savory, simple, plain, tender, heavenly.— RICHARD CECIL
Ask in simplicity. True need forgets to be formal. Its utterances fly from the heart as sparks from a blacksmith's anvil. Set phrases, long sentences, polysyllabic words, find little favor with the soul that is athirst for God and His grace. How brief are the sentences of the immortal and immutable prayer, which Christ taught His disciples! Not a long word is there. Temptation is the longest, and the majority of the words are of one syllable. Do you essay to lead others in prayer? Utter no word that any that hear you cannot understand. Express their need as well as your own. Do not go to the mercy-seat on stilts.— R. M. OFFORD
Lord, teach us to pray. Blessed Jesus, I am but a lamb, and often fear I shall never be any thing better, but perish as I am. Lord, take me in the arms of Thy power and lay me on the bosom of Thy love; though I am so poor and inconsiderable a creature I will hope in Thy pastoral power and love, that I shall not only continue, but grow, and that Thou wilt one day rejoice in me as one of the flock which Thou hast purchased with Thy own blood.— JOHN ANGEL JAMES
Our public prayers too often consist almost entirely of passages of Scripture-not always judiciously chosen or well arranged - and common-place phrases, which have been transmitted down for ages, from one generation to another, selected and put together just as we would compose a sermon or essay, while the heart is allowed no share in the performance; so that we may more properly be said to make a prayer than to pray.— EDWARD PAYSON
Let your prayers be composed of thanksgiving, praise, confession, and petition, without any argument or exhortation addressed to those who are supposed to be praying with you. Adopt no fixed forms of expression, except such as you obtain from Scripture. Express your desire in the briefest, simplest form, without circumlocution. Hallow God's name by avoiding its unnecessary repetition. Adopt the simple devotional phrases of Scripture; but avoid the free use of its figures, and all quaint and doubtful application of its terms to foreign subjects. Pray to God and not to man.— J. ADDISON ALEXANDER
If you are in the spirit of prayer, do not be long, because other people will not be able to keep pace with you in such unusual spirituality, and if you are not in the spirit of prayer, do not be long, because you will be sure to weary the listeners.— JOHN MACDONALD
In the primitive church were not prayers simple, unpremeditated, united; prayers of the well-taught apostle; prayers of the accomplished scholar; prayers of the rough but fervent peasant; prayers of the new and zealous convert; prayers which importuned and wrestled with an instant and irrepressible urgency; - were they not an essential part of that religion, which holy fire had kindled, and which daily supplications alone could fan?— WILLIAM ARTHUR
God's hearing of our prayers does not depend upon sanctification, but upon Christ's intercession; not upon what we are in ourselves, but what we are in the Lord Jesus; both our persons and our prayers are accepted in the Beloved..— THOMAS BROOKS
Your child is falling from a window. By the action of a natural law he will be killed. But he cries out for help, "Father! father!" Hearing his call, in this his day of trouble, you rush forth and catch him in your arms. Your child is saved. Natural law would have killed him, but you interposed, and, without a miracle, saved him. And cannot the great Father of all do what an earthly parent does?— NEWMAN HALL
They tell us of the fixed laws of nature! but who dares maintain that He who fixed these laws cannot use them for the purpose of answering His people's prayers?— Wm. M. TAYLOR
There is no such thing in the long history of God's kingdom as an unanswered prayer. Every true desire from a child's heart finds some true answer in the heart of God.— NORMAN MACLEOD
Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered. Her feet were firmly planted on the Rock; Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted, Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock. She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer, And cries, "It shall be done," sometime, somewhere. Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say ungranted; Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done. The work began when first your prayer was uttered, And God will finish what He has begun. If you will keep the incense burning there, His glory you shall see sometime, somewhere. -— ROBERT BROWNING
Answered prayers cover the field of providential history as flowers cover western prairies.— T. L. CUYLER
I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.— JEAN INGELOW
Are we silent to Jesus? Think! Have you nothing to ask Him? Nothing to thank Him for? Nothing to praise Him for? Nothing to confess? Oh, poor soul, go back to Bethlehem - to Gethsemane, to Calvary, and remember at what a cost the vail before the Holies was rent in twain that thou mightest enter it.— ANNA SHIPTON
God commands you to pray. That is your duty. Nothing can excuse you from it. Wicked heart, as you may have, God commands you to pray. God connects His promise with this command. You have no right to separate them. The promise and the command stand together. Saviour, breathe an evening blessing Ere repose our spirits seal; Sin and want we come confessing; Thou canst save, and Thou canst heal.— JAMES EDMESTON
If I were an impenitent child of godly parents, and should die so, I would rather go into eternity facing a legion of devils than my mother's prayers.— HERRICK JOHNSON
- In eternity it will be a terrible thing for many a man to meet his own prayers. Their very language will condemn him; for he knew his duty, but he did it not.— T. L. CUYLER