Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.
Prayer
Dorothy Day
If you are rushed for time, sow time and you will reap time. Go to church and spend a quiet hour in prayer. You will have more time than ever and your work will get done. Sow time with the poor. Sit and listen to them, give them your time lavishly. You will reap time a hundredfold.
James Goll
Our prayers should be simple—there is no need to instruct the Father. This lack of complexity should be just as true for our minor personal requests as for sweeping global needs. In both cases, we are echoing the prayer of Jesus, “Your Kingdom come on earth as it is currently being manifested in heaven” (see Matt. 6:10). We do not need to tell Him how to handle everything. He is God; He knows already. We just need to present the needs to Him.
Katherine Walden
Making resolutions to spend more time praying will not prove lastingly effective unless there is a measure of trust or faith that God is nearby and is actively listening.
Ole Kristian O. Hallesby
When prayer is a struggle, do not worry about the prayers that you cannot pray. You yourself are a prayer to God at that moment. All that is within you cries out to Him. And he hears all the pleas that your suffering soul and body are making to Him with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Sadhu Sundar Singh
Just as the salt water of the sea is drawn upwards by the hot rays of the sun, and gradually takes on the form of clouds, and, turned thus into sweet and refreshing water, falls in showers on the earth (for the sea water as it rises upwards leaves behind it its salt and bitterness), so when the thoughts and desires of the man of prayer rise aloft like misty emanations of the soul, the rays of the Sun of Righteousness purify them of all sinful taint, and his prayers become a great cloud which descends from heaven in a shower of blessing, bringing refreshment to many on the earth.
Annette Oden
Our time is better spent thanking God, trusting His plan, and praying as we show up and work at the task he sets before us today.
Robert Murray McCheyne
If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.
Pete Greig
In the great days of steam, boiler rooms powered everything from vast machines in factories to household heating systems. A boiler room was a powerhouse, a driving force, a place of pressure and creative energy. From the furnace came power. Of course a boiler room was also functional, dirty and hot, often tucked away in the basement. It wasn’t a comfortable or pretty setting for entertaining or relaxing. The boiler room was a place of essential, hidden labour. This Boiler Room imagery is an eloquent metaphor for the function of a prayer house in any community. As we stoke the fires of intercession— often hard work done in secret—power is released to energise God’s house and his purposes in the surrounding area.
Scott Hubbard
Prayer invades the hours after morning devotions as we turn every burden into “Help me,” every pleasure into “Thank you,” every temptation into “Deliver me,” and every opportunity for obedience into “Strengthen me.” Prayer is more than a slot in our schedule; it is the reflex of our hearts, the aroma of our waking hours.