Talking About Prayer

As we begin the year with an emphasis on prayer, here are some of my favourite quotes on prayer from Christians far and wide. Which ones connect most with you?

“When you pray, rather let your heart be without words than your words without heart.” John Bunyan

“Pray as you can, not as you can’t.” John Chapman

“If a matter is not important enough to pray about, then it is not serious enough to worry about.” James Gibbons

“We can all sympathise with the desperate but doomed prayer of the schoolboy who was coming out of his exam and was heard to pray, ‘Oh, God, please make Paris the capital of Turkey!’  There are some things that even God can’t answer!” Nicky Gumbel

“Don’t worry about praying over small things; with God everything is small.” R.T. Kendall

 “If your day is hemmed with prayer it is less likely to unravel.” J. John

“When I work, I work. When I pray, God works.” Bill Hybels

"Anyone can pray in crisis. Show me someone who will earnestly pray without a crisis and I will show you someone who is ready if one comes." Bill Johnson

“God lives in the eternal present; therefore he has all eternity to answer the split second prayer of a driver who is about to crash.” Clifford Longley

“Pray as if everything depends on God; work as if everything depends on you.” Martin Luther

“We shall need eternity to thank God for all the prayers he didn’t answer.” Mark Oakley

“Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. Prayer humbles us as needy and exalts God as all-sufficient.” John Piper

“I try to listen to the Lord as I walk and to hear what he is saying before I pray for people – that’s how it works.” Jackie Pullinger

“Prayer is the place where burdens change shoulders.” Source Unknown

“When I pray coincidences happen. And when I stop praying, the coincidences stop.” William Temple

Interviewer: “So what do you say to the good Lord when you pray?”

Mother Teresa: “Nothing. I listen to him.”

Interviewer: “I see. And what does he say to you then?”

Mother Teresa: “Nothing. He listens to me.”