Inspirational Prayer Quotes 2013

These are some of my favorite quotes about prayer, and the power of prayer. After you read them, why not learn HOW TO PRAY?

"Prayer is not getting man's will done in heaven, but getting God's will done on earth. It is not overcoming God's reluctance but laying hold of God's willingness."
Richard C. Trench -- Read about it in "Yes" Will Come

"Only those who see the invisible can attempt the impossible."
Dick Eastman -- Try An Open Door for more about this.

"More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of."
Alfred Lord Tennyson

"It is the habit of faith, when she is praying, to use pleas. Mere prayer sayers, who do not pray at all, forget to argue with God; but those who prevail bring forth their reasons and their strong arguments"
Charles H. Spurgeon

"God does nothing but by prayer, and everything with it."
John Wesley -- Chance Thoughts develops this theme.

"Most men pray for power, the strength to do things. Few people pray for love, the quality to be someone."
Robert Foster

"Prayer requires more of the heart than the tongue."
Adam Clarke -- Ever feel like this?: Pray In Vain

"No one is a firmer believer in the power of prayer than the devil; not that he practices it, but he suffers from it."
Guy H. King -- Try practicing this concept: That Is Not Acceptable

"The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, buy unoffered prayer."
F.B. Meyer -- Learn to just Ask

"Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work."
Oswald Chanbers

"Pray as if everything depended on God, and work as if everything depended upon man."
Francis J. Spellman

"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 -- Read this to increase your effectiveness: What Are YOU Expecting?

"Do not make prayer a monologue-make it a conversation."
Author unknown -- Read all about it in Prayer That Whispers In His Ear.

"Effective prayer is prayer that attains what it seeks. It is prayer that moves God, effecting its end."
Charles Finney -- Try I Declare to increase your prayer's effectiveness

"Seven days without prayer makes one weak."
Allen Vartlett -- Why don't you Get In The Habit?

"Every great movement of God can be traced to a kneeling figure."
D. L. Moody

"Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow."
Benjamin Franklin

"Our prayers must mean something to us if they are to mean anything to God."
Maltbie D. Babcock -- Here's a man they meant something to: Add Fifteen

"To pray in Jesus' name means to pray in his spirit, in his compassion, in his love, in his outrage, in his concern. In other words, it means to pray a prayer that Jesus himself might pray."
Kenneth L. Wilson

Delivered from Evil - An Ounce of Prevention “’And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’” (Matthew 6:13) “Now Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, ‘Oh that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from harm that it may not pain me!’ And God granted him what he requested.” (1 Chronicles 4:10)

Prayer to be delivered from evil and harm is certainly scriptural and unquestionably potent in my opinion. But how would one know? After all, the proof of the effectiveness of this kind of prayer is mostly in what doesn’t transpire. How do you tally all the things that didn’t happen, all the evil avoided, all the harm averted? Pretty hard.

So be it. I’m quite willing to settle for that—it’s an okay trade-off to me. I have a strong suspicion that if I actually realized all that would have happened to me and my family without prayer I’d be shocked. Considering some of the evil and harm I’ve encountered, I wish I had prayed even more.

Let’s discuss the HOW of this kind of prayer but first let’s get something out of the way. We are not being self-indulgent by praying to be delivered from evil. Some people seem to have that mindset but I hope you don’t. We are not spiritual wimps for wanting to avoid harm and all the pain associated with it. It was Jesus who taught us in the Lord’s Prayer to ask our Heavenly Father for that very thing. And as for Jabez, note that God “granted him what he requested” as if he delighted in his request.

Now to the nitty-gritty. Besides getting up every morning and issuing a general “Lord please deliver me from evil,” is there a way to be more specific? I’ll share some of my own strategies with you for keeping evil at bay. I’ll give you a couple of examples but you can apply this specific kind of prayer to any area in your life.

Travel

Do you always ask for traveling mercies when you take a trip? Lots of people do but did you ever pray expressly for protection against those things that could ruin it?

• Ask God to post angels in the front and back and around your vehicle. When I’m flying I always ask the Lord to position an angel on each wing to lift us smoothly up and safely back down and to hold the plane steady while in flight.
• When driving I ask for alertness but I also pray that anyone who is not driving safely will be kept far from my piece of the roadway while I’m on it. This includes any driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs or any who are too fatigued.
• Road rage: I don’t want to encounter it so I pray specifically for every driver who shares the road with me. I pray for relaxation and peace and I stand against anxiety and stress that would lead to aggressive driving.
• What about obstacles? I watch for warning roadway signs such as “Watch for Deer” or “Falling Rock” and then I specifically pray against those things. I’ve seen the damage a deer hitting a car can cause because my daughter once had her car totaled by one. She was safe but it reminded me to add that kind of prayer to future trips.
• Praying blessings on fellow travelers is also a hedge of protection. Sometimes I pray for each person who passes me or that I pass on the highway or for each passenger on the plane with me. Someone who is being hit with blessings is not so likely to cause me any trouble.
• Uncovering plots: On planes and in airports I particularly pray for any terrorist plots to be uncovered and for anyone with evil intent to be thwarted in their plans.

Children

We can’t be with our children at all times but our prayer can be with them every minute. We can pray strongly and effectively that anything evil will give them a wide berth.

• Pray not only that their friends will be godly and have good influence but that “bad” friends (or bullies even) will not be attracted or want anything to do with your kids.
• If predators are anywhere in the vicinity of your children, pray that they will not notice your child--that your child will be invisible to them. That those kinds of people will move out of your neighborhood and stay far away from any school your child attends.
• Pray that your child will not find evil attractive and in case they do, that all plans to get in trouble of any kind will fall apart and go nowhere. I have a friend whose mother prayed very successfully for her along those lines. Here is that story if you’d like to read it: Thorns & Walls
• If your children have access to the Internet pray that no bad websites will come up for them (even accidentally) and that they won’t notice any sleazy ads or be drawn into disreputable social networks. You want it to be easy for them to encounter good and near impossible for them to stumble upon evil.
• Simply think about every area of your child’s life and recognize what could make it the worst-case scenario and then pray specifically against it.

When you pray to be delivered from evil you are putting into practice the old adage: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You will know how effective your prayers are when NOTHING HAPPENS. The less evil and harm are manifest in your life, the more successful you’ll know you have been.

Each night when you get into bed, thank God for everything that didn’t happen—all the evil he protected you and your loved ones from. It’s a prayer he delights in answering as much for you as he did for Jabez. Then fall asleep peacefully, confident in these words, “I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust!’” (Psalm 91:2)

The prayer went like this: "And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God." (Exodus 2:24) The scripture then tells us that "God heard their groaning…and God took notice of them."

The Lord put in motion an answer that would lead them to say; "Would that we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full." (Exodus 16:3) They said that even before they started wandering in the wilderness for forty years.

Here's what they said while they wandered: "'Why did we ever leave Egypt?'" (Numbers 11:20) Even though God had done great miracles while delivering them from slavery, they were sorely pressed in the process. God's promise that they would inherit their own land beckoned them forward yet they wished they had never asked for freedom.

The truth is that they would never have cried out to the Lord in the first place if their affliction in Egypt had not been so severe. For better treatment as slaves they would willingly have stayed put because it was comfortable and safe. They really had no idea what freedom would feel like or what would be required to obtain it. That's why, when they began to feel pinched; God lifted his hand and let things get much, much worse.

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Price of Freedom

Not a lot has changed with human nature in the thousands of years that have passed since Moses led those whiners across the Red Sea and into a forty year desert experience. Are we so different? We'd like to think so but we often settle for Plan C, D, or F because we are comfortable and things are "tolerable."

Sometimes, however, we get desperate enough with the stinky condition of our life to utter one of those dangerous prayers. "Lord, do whatever it takes to make me like Jesus." "God, I will serve you no matter what." "Father, remove anything from me that hinders my relationship with you."

God is more than willing to answer because it was his idea in the first place to free us from any "slavery" we live with. "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1)

Like the Israelites, we don't know what our dangerous prayer is going to require. With our character at stake, God doesn't usually just snap his fingers. He may part a couple of seas to start us off but a desert probably isn't far behind. Genuine freedom will require faith and faith grows best in the soil of difficulties. Otherwise, why would it be called "faith"?

Suddenly, we are in adversity such as we never imagined. Our desert is so hot we don't even relate our circumstances to the prayer we uttered in the beginning with such sincerity. As far as we know, we have been abandoned and all God's promises are mirages.

It is when we are stripped bare that the weight of our prayer is fully realized. It is then that we too may begin to whine and beg to go back to our own Egypt. "We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic." (Numbers 11:5) Resist that. Don't look back; press on - the Promised Land is ahead and you will get there. The thing that you prayed is the very thing God wants for you - freedom - and each trial is unhooking you from whatever prevents your experiencing it.

Remember that in the case of the Israelites, they were out of Egypt long before Egypt was out of them. Do you have a little Egypt still in you? Don't worry; the desert will burn it out. Whether you know it or not, that was the whole idea behind the dangerous prayer.

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Note: What to expect when you pray a dangerous prayer

• Don't be surprised by the heat. "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." (James 1:2-4)
• Sometimes things get worse before they get better.
• Freedom often takes longer than you expected.
• You will come to wonder if the pain you are enduring is worth it after all. (It is.)
• Faith is tested to the breaking point so that it is proven unshakable and unbreakable. "And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." (Hebrews 11:6)
• In the end here is how you will see it: "For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison." (2 Corinthians 4:17)