Prayer
Quotes - No one can believe how powerful prayer is
“Imagine
that Jesus is calling you today. He extends a second invitation to accept His
Father's love. And maybe you answer, "Oh, I know that. It's old hat."
And
God answers, 'No, that's what you don't know. You don't know how much I love
you. The moment you think you understand is the moment you do not understand. I
am God, not man. You tell others about Me - your words are glib. My words are
written in the blood of My only Son. The next time you preach about My love
with such obnoxious familiarity, I may come and blow your whole prayer meeting
apart.
Did
you know that every time you tell Me you love Me, I say thank you?”
―
Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel
“When
I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can
see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God
already directs toward that person.”
―
Philip Yancey
“We
tend to be preoccupied by our problems when we have a heightened sense of
vulnerability and a diminished sense of power. Today, see each problem as an
invitation to prayer.”
―
John Ortberg, The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God's Best Version of You
“The
only difference between a wish and a prayer is that you're at the mercy of the
universe for the first, and you've got some help with the second.”
―
Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home
“How
many of us have conflicts with someone else- and how many of us pray for that
person? We have individuals with whom we are competitive, or whom we dislike or
have a quarrel with; but very few of us have true enemies in the martial sense.
And yet if Lincoln could pray fervently- and contemporary reports indicate he
did- for the people who were opposing him, how much more can we do for someone
we just find a little irritating?”
―
John Wooden, A Game Plan for Life: The Power of Mentoring
“Sometimes
the best answers to prayer are the ones God doesn't answer.”
―
Robin Jones Gunn, Surprise Endings
“So
you make this deal with the gods. You do these dances and they'll send rain and
good crops and the whole works? And nothing bad will ever happen. Right.'
Prayer had always struck me as more or less a glorified attempt at a business
transaction. A rain dance even more so.
I
thought I might finally have offended Loyd past the point of no return, like
stealing the lobster from frozen foods that time, to get myself fired. But Loyd
was just thinking. After a minute he said, 'No, it's not like that. It's not
making a deal, bad things can still happen, but you want to try not to cause
them to happen. It has to do with keeping things in balance.'
In
balance.'
Really,
it's like the spirits have made a deal with us.'
And
what is the deal?' I asked.
We're
on our own. The spirits have been good enough to let us live here and use the
utilities, and we're saying: We know how nice you're being. We appreciate the
rain, we appreciate the sun, we appreciate the deer we took. Sorry if we messed
up anything. You've gone to a lot of trouble, and we'll try to be good guests.'
Like
a note you'd send somebody after you stayed in their house?'
Exactly
like that. 'Thanks for letting me sleep on your couch. I took some beer out of
the refrigerator, and I broke a coffee cup. Sorry, I hope it wasn't your
favorite one.”
―
Barbara Kingsolver
“No
one can believe how powerful prayer is and what it can effect, except those who
have learned it by experience. Whenever I have prayed earnestly, I have been heard
and have obtained more than I prayed for. God sometimes delays, but He always
comes.”
―
Martin Luther
“God
help us to live slowly:
To
move simply:
To
look softly:
To
allow emptiness:
To
let the heart create for us.
Amen.”
―
Michael Leunig
“Obedience,
fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real
true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud
and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God's help I attain
freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy.”
―
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“Lord,
to the degree I don't want to do this, bless me.”
―
Luci Swindoll
“My
Uncle Malky always said the Lord Leto never responded to prayer. He said the
Lord Leto looked on prayer as attempted coercion, a form of violence against
the chosen god, telling the immortal what to do: Give me a miracle, God, or I
won't believe in you!”
―
Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune
“Work
as if everything depended upon work and pray as if everything depended upon
prayer.”
―
William Booth
“To
be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without
breathing.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“People
said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe
exist, eh?
And
of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the
universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn't in
fact made it. If he had made it he would, being Supreme, have made a better job
of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things
like the design of the common nostril. Or, to put it another way, the existence
of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You
only had to look around to see that there was room for improvement practically
everywhere. This suggested that the Universe had probably been put together in
a bit of a rush by an underling while the Supreme Being wasn't looking, in the
same way that Boy Scouts' Association minutes are done on office photocopiers
all over the country.
So,
reasoned Koomi, it was not a good idea to address any prayers to a Supreme
Being. It would only attract his attention and might cause trouble.”
―
Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
“Our
forgiving love toward men is the evidence of God's forgiving love in us. It is
a necessary condition of the prayer of faith.”
―
Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer
“Wish'
is the most powerful thing in the world. Higher than God.”
―
G.I. Gurdjieff
“Prayer
will never do our work for us; what it will do is to strengthen us for work
which must be done.”
―
William Barclay
“For
most of us the prayer in Gethsemane is the only model. Removing mountains can
wait.”
―
C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
“That
is to say, I pray for you. And there's an intimacy in it. That's the truth.”
―
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
“Grandpa
had made the Lord seem so real, I wouldn't of been surprised if he'd said good
night to Him. But after a long pause he just said a-men.”
―
Olive Ann Burns, Cold Sassy Tree
“Nor
dread nor hope attend
A
dying animal;
A
man awaits his end
Dreading
and hoping all.”
―
William Butler Yeats
“if you cannot but weep when your soul summons
you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until
you shall come laughing”
― Kahlil
Gibran
“If
you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate. ...
Choose science.”
―
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
