Our Prayers Quotes

If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

All prayer is responding to God. In all cases God is the initiator - "hearing" always precedes asking. God comes to us first or we would never reach out to him.92 Yet all prayers are not alike or equally effective in relating to God. The clearer our understanding of who God is, the better our prayers. Instinctive prayer is like an emergency flare in reaction to a general sense of God's reality. Prayer as a spiritual gift is a genuine, personal conversation in reply to God's specific, verbal revelation. ~ Timothy J. Keller

Be specific in your prayer requests of GOD. ~ Benny Hinn

May our prayers today - and every day - be from our hearts and with the focus of our whole being! ~ Billy Graham

Christ sometimes delays His help so He may test our faith and energize our prayers. Our boat may be tossed by the waves while he continues to sleep, but He will awake before it sinks. ~ Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

The greater your cares, the more genuine your prayers ~ Max Lucado

Prayer is an act of faith. Just by praying to God, you are declaring our trust in someone other than yourself. Your faith is increased as you pray and watch how God answers your prayers. God says in Jeremiah 33:3, Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know. God is awesome in power and there is never a time when He is not beside you. He is faithful and holy. ~ Charles Stanley

So often it hurts us that we are not able to focus in our prayers. Remember, the more you focus on Allah outside your salah, the easier it will be to focus on Him inside your salah. What occupies you in salah, is what occupies you outside of salah. Try to fill your mind and heart with Allah as much as you can throughout your day. Talk to Him, make duaa to Him constantly. This will build your personal relationship with Him. Then, going to salah will be like coming home to an old friend. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

It isn't as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. It all works out in the end. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

Hashem may not answer our prayers the way we want him to," he said, clearing his throat. "He did not deliver Joseph from prison right away. But Hashem was there with Joseph, even in hype silence ~ Lynn Austin

What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer? ~ Thomas Merton

You must pray with all your might. That does not mean saying your prayers, or sitting gazing about in church or chapel with eyes wide open while someone else says them for you. It means fervent, effectual, untiring wrestling with God. This kind of prayer be sure the devil and the world and your own indolent, unbelieving nature will oppose. They will pour water on this flame. ~ William Booth

The richness of God's Word ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Saying a prayer can be as simple as thinking positive thoughts about someone - it's not an act that needs to be tied to any particular religion or system of beliefs. I can say a prayer just by saying "I wish you peace" after someone becomes angry with me for something trivial; I can say a prayer for the woman who is always cheerful (or gloomy) at the store where I shop by thinking "I wish you all the best in life - good health, good relationships, and all of your true needs fulfilled." Of course, if you want to pray to God in the form in which you conceive of God, that's fine, too - and your prayer will not be wasted. Think about it. Is the world a better place when you walk away from someone either forgetting them immediately or thinking negative thoughts about them? This world of ours can use all the positive thoughts we can contribute to it, and our simple and heartfelt prayers are some of the most positive thoughts we can create and share. And they affect us as much as, if not more than, they affect the objects of our prayers. ~ Tom Walsh

Our good nature and endearing qualities will not arouse the answers to our prayers. Rather it is our mischievous, dishonest attributes that provide the master keys to heaven. When we identify and work to transform our self-centered qualities and crooked characteristics, the key turns and the gates unlock. Blessings and good fortune are now free to rain down upon us. ~ Yehuda Berg

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, our faith triumphant o'er our fears, are all with thee – are all with thee! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Be faithful to the time spent in prayer and make sure that at least half of your prayer is spent in silence. This will bring you closer to Jesus. If you deepen your prayer life you will grow in holiness and obtain many graces for the souls entrusted to your care. Deepen your love for one another by praying for each other and by sharing thoughts and graces you have received in prayer and reading. ~ Mother Teresa

What we now have as a government is a god, built by our mortal hands and, yet, externally variant in power, always requiring our prayers, pity and appeals in order to fulfill its supposed purposes. ~ Tony Osborg

The enemy just hates our prayers. ~ Francis Chan

What would our hospitality look like if we believed that Jesus's death on the cross was the measure of God's compassion for someone? ~ Gloria Furman

Know also that you will probably gain more by praying fifteen minutes before the Blessed Sacrament than by all the other spiritual exercises of the day. True, Our Lord hears our prayers anywhere, for He has made the promise, 'Ask, and you shall receive,' but He has revealed to His servants that those who visit Him in the Blessed Sacrament will obtain a more abundant measure of grace. ~ Alphonsus Liguori

Language is the element of definition, the defining and descriptive incantation. It puts the coin between our teeth. It whistles the boat up. It shows us the city of light across the water. Without language there is no poetry, without poetry there's just talk. Talk is cheap and proves nothing. Poetry is dear and difficult to come by. But it poles us across the river and puts a music in our ears. It moves us to contemplation. And what we contemplate, what we sing our hymns to and offer our prayers to, is what will reincarnate us in the natural world, and what will be our one hope for salvation in the What'sToCome. ~ Charles Wright

God welcomes our prayers. He is much more concerned about our hearts than our eloquence. ~ Billy Graham

If we, like the Savior, have the faith to put our trust in our Father in Heaven, to submit to His will, the true spirit of peace will come as a witness and strength that He has heard and answered our prayers. ~ Rex D. Pinegar

We are the natural nurturers of the Earth Mother. The Earth Mother needs our help, she needs our prayers. We need to educate the women of the world that prayer works. ~ Agnes Baker Pilgrim

Your prayers for your children are the greatest legacy you can leave. ~ Mark Batterson

Why do we fret and worry and sometimes question if God will answer our prayers when we need them? Remember, prayer is something we do in our time; answering prayers is something God does in His. If you're struggling with the wait, remember that it wasn't until Abraham lifted the knife over Isaac that God provided the substitute ram for a sacrifice. It may be the 11th hour, but if you're faithful, God will answer your prayers, and always in a way and at the time that has His glory and your best interest at heart! ~ Ron Lambros

While testimonies can come as dramatic manifestations, they usually do not. Sometimes people think they need to have an experience like Joseph Smith's vision before they gain testimonies. If we have unrealistic expectations of how, when, or where answers come, we risk missing the answers which come as quiet, reassuring feelings and thoughts that most often come after our prayers, while we are doing something else. These answers can be equally convincing and powerful. ~ Allan F. Packer

We don't need to pray to prove that we're properly pious or really serious. Instead, we pray because we are completely assured, and because the Father hears our prayers because they come to Him through the lips of His dear Son. ~ Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

After saying our prayers, we ought to do something to make them come true. ~ William Feather

God is the vessel of love that gives wings to our prayers ~ Mimi Novic

In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection," he stated. "Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered ... Do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? ~ Benjamin Franklin

Why do we bombard God with our prayers for what we lack to be provided? Perhaps we should be asking God not to supply our wants, but to dwell within them. ~ Margaret Silf

If God were not only to hear our prayers, as he does ever and always, but to answer them as we want them answered, he would not be God our Saviour but the ministering genius of our destruction. ~ George MacDonald

We have to believe that our prayers, if pure and powerful can transform any catastrophic situation, regardless of its magnitude. ~ Pooja Ruprell

The answer to your prayer is not according to your faith while you are talking, but according to your faith while you are working. ~ Wallace D. Wattles

True prayers are born of present trials and present needs. Bread for today is bread enough. Bread given for today is the strongest sort of pledge that there will be bread tomorrow. Victory today is the assurance of victory tomorrow. Our prayers need to be focused upon the present. We must trust God today, and leave the morrow entirely with Him. The present is ours; the future belongs to God. Prayer is the task and duty of each recurring day
daily prayer for daily needs. ~ E. M. Bounds

I know at times we feel that perhaps in our prayers we ask too much. Or possibly we feel something isn't important enough to be bothering God with it. Maybe we should let Him decide these things. ~ Ronald Reagan

It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them. ~ Dalai Lama

I have something else to ask you-to ask every American. I ask for you to pray for this great nation. I ask your prayers for leaders from both parties. I thank you for your prayers for me and my family, and I ask you to pray for Vice President Gore and his family. ~ George W. Bush

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

The answer to our prayer may be the echo of our resolve. ~ Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel

When I immersed myself in prayer and united myself with all the Masses that were being celebrated all over the world at that time, I implored God, for the sake of all these Holy Masses, to have mercy on the world and especially on poor sinners who were dying at that moment. At the same instant, I received an interior answer from God that a thousand souls had received grace through the prayerful mediation I had offered to God. We do not know the number of souls that is ours to save through our prayers and sacrifices; therefore, let us always pray for sinners. ~ Mary Faustina Kowalska

There must be fired affections before our prayers will go up. ~ William Jenkyn

We must have a warrant for our prayers. If we have some great desire, we must search the scriptures to find if it be right to ask it. ~ Dwight L. Moody

Sometimes it helps to begin our prayers by confessing we don't feel like praying-and ask God to help us with our preference to be doing something else. ~ David Jeremiah

brings some blessings to unbelieving people. Jesus tells us, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt. 5:44), and since there is no restriction in the context simply to pray for their salvation, and since the command to pray for our persecutors is coupled with a command to love them, it seems reasonable to conclude that God intends to answer our prayers even for our persecutors with regard to many areas of life. ~ Wayne A. Grudem

Our prayer life will become restful when it really dawns upon us that we have done all we are supposed to do when we have spoken to Him about it. From the moment we have left it with Him, it is His responsi-bility. ~ Ole Hallesby

One reason many of us never get an answer to our prayers is that all we do is pray. ~ Mark Batterson

Although we're made right with God by faith, and not by works, the effectiveness of our prayers is often tied to the holiness of our lives. ~ Craig Groeschel

When our hands have touched spices, they give fragrance to all they handle. Let us make our prayers pass through the hands of the Blessed Virgin. She will make them fragrant. ~ John Vianney

Pythagoras was the first to introduce vegetarianism to the West. It is of profound depth for man to learn how to live in friendship with nature, in friendship with creatures. That becomes the foundation. And only on that foundation can you base your prayer, your meditativeness. You can watch it in yourself: when you eat meat, meditation will be found to be more and more difficult. ~ Rajneesh

God requires us to have a heart of faith, and answers our prayers according to our faith. In ~ Adam Houge

Amazing, isn't it, that our prayers ... can move the very heart of God who created the universe? ~ Joni Eareckson Tada

This kind of horror has become all too familiar to us. As parents, Cindy and I offer our prayers to the memory of the slain children and ask that God ease the pain of Littleton's suffering families, ... The students of Columbine High School and children everywhere have a basic right to learn in an environment free of fear and violence. We must redouble our efforts to see that this is a reality. ~ John McCain

God wants us to pray, and he wants to hear our prayers - not because we are worthy, but because he is merciful. ~ Martin Luther

Do not exclusively say your prayers in the form of asking God for something. The prayer of thanksgiving is much more powerful. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

God sometimes answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for had we known what He knows. ~ J.D. Greear

The pain of losing Deborah still brings tears. And I cannot mask my profound disappointment that God did not answer yes to our prayers for healing. I think He's okay with that. One of the phrases we evangelicals like to throw around is that Christianity is 'not a religion; it's a relationship.' I believe that, which is why I know that when my faith was shattered and raged against Him, He still accepted me. And even though I have penciled a black mark in His column, I can be honest about it. That's what a relationship is all about. ~ Ron Hall

Our prayers, offered in utter weakness, are represented before God Himself with the tangible scent and form of incense filling real, physical bowls. How we radically undervalue our prayers. ~ Anna Blanc

When people pray, they're choosing to believe there's a good, loving God reaching out to us, listening to our prayers, and meeting with us. ~ Ed Cyzewski

Excess of trouble may, for a time, distract and overwhelm the soul. Our Lord himself seems to have experienced somewhat of this. Our prayers, perhaps, are never more acceptable, than when they are offered in broken accents, in sighs, and groans. ~ Charles Simeon

May our gratitude find expression in our prayers and our service for others, and in our commitment to live wholly for Christ. ~ Billy Graham

We are a city that has had Islam for one thousand years. We had the greatest teachers and universities. And now these Bedouins, these illiterates, these ignoramuses, tell us how to wear our pants, and how to say our prayers, and how our wives should dress, as if they were the ones who invented the way? ~ Joshua Hammer

Let holy preparation link hands with patient expectation, and we shall have far larger answers to our prayers. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Let your prayer for temporal blessings be strictly limited to things absolutely necessary. ~ Bernard Of Clairvaux

They deserve our prayers, not our gossip. ~ Sarah Sundin

God's hearing of our prayers doth 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 acceptable in the beloved [Eph 1.6]. ~ Thomas Brooks

Our life is to be bound up with the life of Christ; we are to draw constantly from Him, partaking of Him, the living Bread that came down from heaven, drawing from a fountain ever fresh, ever giving forth its abundant treasures. If we keep the Lord ever before us, allowing our hearts to go out in thanksgiving and praise to Him, we shall have a continual freshness in our religious life. Our prayers will take the form of a conversation with God as we would talk with a friend. He will speak His mysteries to us personally. Often there will come to us a sweet joyful sense of the presence of Jesus. Often our hearts will burn within us as He draws nigh to commune with us as He did with Enoch. When this {130} is in truth the experience of the Christian, there is seen in his life a simplicity, a humility, meekness, and lowliness of heart, that show to all with whom he associates that he has been with Jesus and learned of Him. ~ Ellen G. White

The Lord is in all of our lives. He loves us. He wants to bless us. He wants us to seek His help. As He guides us and directs us and as He hears and answers our prayers, we will find the happiness here and now that He desires for us. May we be aware of His blessings in our lives. ~ Thomas S. Monson

The author says our prayers are misdirected when we ask God that He help us to love Him more. If we pray to him more, we will love Him more. ~ Jen Pollock Michel

When the past has taught us that we have more within us than we have ever used, our prayer is a cry to the divine to come to us and fill us with its power. ~ Rudolf Steiner

In our prayers, we talk to God, in our Bible study, God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking. ~ Dwight L. Moody

All the Saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me. And your prayers, my dear friends, your indulgence, your love, your faith and your hope accompany me. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Water has a memory and carries within it our thoughts and prayers. As you yourself are water, no matter where you are, your prayers will be carried to the rest of the world. ~ Masaru Emoto

And this,' Ivan said to the children gathered around, 'is who we are, and this is what we do. Our family serves the Lord
no matter what comes
and when He answers our prayers, no matter how he answers them
we give him praise. ~ Serena B. Miller

The entire Habitat family mourns the loss of our founder, a true giant in the affordable housing movement. Our prayers are with the entire Fuller family. ~ Jonathan Reckford

Loving God, in life and in death, we belong to you. So in the midst of life, we entrust ourselves to your care. We are bold to ask for help when we are confused, lost, or afraid. We are eager to ask for healing for our bodies and minds, whether wounded, ill, or recovering. And we are unceasing in our prayers for those we love who are far from us physically, emotionally, or spiritually. In the midst of death and grief, even though we are weary, we return again and again, praying for comfort, for an easing of the pain that comes from loss, and for the light of your presence to pierce the present darkness. ~ Kimberly Bracken Long

Surely--we argue--it is safer to make, at the Morning Offering, a virtual intention covering all the day, and then carry on with practical common sense.
This sounds excellent in theory, but too often it breaks down in practice and merely ends in the making of the Morning Offering, while we slip through the day on a purely natural plane till we arrive at our prayers in the evening; and it is precisely our habit of thus meeting the smallest actions of our daily life on the natural plane which makes them more than we can cope with. Divorced from their true purpose, that of leading us out of ourselves to God and to our fellow-men, they imprison us within ourselves and make us give way to self-pity and discontent.
On the other hand, if we do everything to please Our Lord we shall find ourselves becoming more and more alert to help others and far more conscious of the endless little opportunities around us, the value of which we had never realized before. ~ Vernon Johnson

Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle. ~ C.S. Lewis

Brilliant ideas are gifts from God, sent to you in answer to your prayers ... and all you need to do is act upon the ideas, one divinely guided step at a time. If you want to validate if an idea is truly heavensent, ask your angels to send you clear signs. ~ Doreen Virtue

When we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," we are, in a measure, shutting tomorrow out of our prayer. We do not live in tomorrow but in today. We do not seek tomorrow's grace or tomorrow's bread. They thrive best, and get most out of life, who live in the living present. They pray best who pray for today's needs, not for tomorrow's, which may render our prayers unnecessary and redundant by not existing at all! ~ E. M. Bounds

The danger, then, is that materialism is not only shaping how we live but the way we think as well. It influences our consumer tastes and our preference for high-paying jobs, but it also alters our capacity to pray, the nature of our prayers, and the ways in which religious tutelage instructs our values. ~ Robert Wuthnow

Even if we are separated from people, and even if there is no other gift which we can give to them, we can surround them with the strength and the defence of our prayers. ~ William Barclay

Our prayers run along one road and God's answers by another, and by and by they meet. ~ Adoniram Judson

He wrote so many letters that occasionally he would forget the name of the person he was writing to. "This is a letter to what's-his-name," he'd begin. "Jeane will know his name, ask Jeane." Jeane was our senate liaison and someone who knew nearly everyone. "Dear whoever," he would continue, "I just wanted to let you know how sorry I was to hear about your dad. I remember losing my dad when I was seventeen, and all I can say is it wasn't easy. Please know you'll be in our prayers over the coming weeks and months." I wondered if the governor would pray for somebody whose name he couldn't remember. Would he tell God to ask Jeane? ~ Barton Swaim

It is our nation which is blind, and needs our prayers. ~ Jonathan Kozol

If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, what doubts should we have concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses? ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

God answers our prayers not because we are good, but because He is good. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

God does not give heed to the ambitiousness of our prayers, because he is always ready to give to us his light, not a visible light but an intellectual and spiritual one; but we are not always ready to receive it when we turn aside and down to other things out of a desire for temporal things. ~ Saint Augustine

If God's people hunger deeply enough, God will hear and send revival. God requires more than casual prayers for revival. He wants His people to hunger and thirst for His mighty working. To seek God's face is far more than occasionally mentioning revival in our prayer. It involves repeated and prolonged prayer. It requires holy determination in prayer, examining ourselves to see if anything in our lives is hindering God. ~ Wesley L. Duewel

On the ground of our own goodness we cannot expect to have our prayers answered. But Jesus is worthy, and for His sake we may have our prayers answered. There is nothing too choice, too costly, or too great for God to give Him. He is worthy. He is the spotless, holy Child, who under all circumstances acted according to the mind of God. And if we trust in Him, if we hide in Him, if we put Him forward and ourselves in the background, depend on Him and plead His name, we may expect to have our prayers answered. ~ George Muller

Persecution, whether it is physical, social, or mental, is one of the worst types of pain, but those who persecute us are to be the objects of our prayers. ~ Billy Graham

Our prayers must not be efforts to bend God to our will but to yield ourselves to His. ~ Catherine Marshall

The purpose of all prayer is to find God's will and to make that our prayer ~ Catherine Marshall

God is going to supply a million dollars, somebody is praying right now, right this second, you're praying for a million dollars and God said, "I have heard your prayer, I know your need, and I'm going to supply the need that you requested," it's done, in Jesus' name. ~ Pat Robertson

If there is a God that has special plans for humans, then He has taken very great pains to hide His concern for us. To me it would seem impolite if not impious to bother such a God with our prayers. ~ Steven Weinberg

Yet the greatest impact of the rise of great gods was not on sheep or demons, but upon the status of Homo sapiens. Animists thought that humans were just one of many creatures inhabiting the world. Polytheists, on the other hand, increasingly saw the world as a reflection of the relationship between gods and humans. Our prayers, our sacrifices, our sins and our good deeds determined the fate of the entire ecosystem. A terrible flood might wipe out billions of ants, grasshoppers, turtles, antelopes, giraffes and elephants, just because a few stupid Sapiens made the gods angry. Polytheism thereby exalted not only the status of the gods, but also that of humankind. Less fortunate members of the old animist system lost their stature and became either extras or silent decor in the great drama of man's relationship with the gods. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Sweet souls around us watch us still, press nearer to our side; Into our thoughts, into our prayers, with gentle helpings glide. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

We are deeply saddened by the tremendous loss of life and devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, .. Starbucks has a long tradition of striving to bring together people and communities where we do business. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and many others impacted by this natural disaster; our prayers and thoughts are with all the families who have lost loved ones. ~ Howard Schultz