Prayer isn't built on secret formulas,
but on honest conversation with God

Prayer is talking with God.

Do you still pray baby Christian prayers?

Are your prayers on the order of "Now I lay me down to sleep...?" Or have you achieved maturity in your prayers?

Talking with God can be intimidating. It can also turn into a "gimme list" if we're not careful.

God does have many good things he wants to give you, and he does want you to ask for them. But he also wants to hear your hopes and dreams, your doubts and disappointments.

Check out these quotations from wise men and women of God. Your prayer life can be so much more!




Work as if everything depended upon your work, and pray as if everything depended upon your prayer.
William Booth

God answers in installments every prayer offered to him.
Carroll E. Simcox

I don't pray to God because of my goodness, but because of God's goodness.
Alan Bryan

There is a unity between doing the works of God and being listened to by Him when we pray. In some way, it is really the same: to do the works of God and to have our prayers answered. Our prayers will be answered because we are doing daily the works of God. And we do the works of God because our prayers are answered.
Adrian van Kaam

Do not fret or worry about distractions. It seems no exaggeration to state that 99 percent of people are anxious, even nettled and irked by the spontaneous wanderings they experience at prayer.
Thomas Dubay

We are passive in prayer because prayer itself is active. Prayer cannot be measured on a scale of success and failure because it is God's work--and God always succeeds.
Michael Casey

The fewer the words, the better the prayer. The more words, the worse the prayer. Few words and much meaning is Christian. Many words and little meaning is pagan.
Martin Luther

We have learned that an answer to prayer is not an end in itself, but is always God's opening of the next door of our lives and ushering us into the next era He has for us.
Evelyn Christenson

The first time you receive guidance you will know the difference. You can misake rhinestones for diamonds, but you can never mistake a diamond for a rhinestone.
Adele Rogers St. John

When we pray, prayer becomes not a means of getting what we want, but a means of petition to the Father and trusting in Him to do what is best for us.
Thomas L. Seals

Spiritual people are not those who engage in certain spiritual practices; they are those who draw their life from a conversational relationship with God.
Dallas Willard

Prayer is not designed to change God but to change us. The faster we let that happen, the better our prayer is going to be.
Thomas Keating

Someone is there...More, someone is there who loves me. It was a startling feeling of wild hope, a feeling so new and overwhelming that it seemed fully worth risking my life on.
Philip Yancey

Jesus teaches us to pray Thy will be done, not Thy will be changed.
William Barclay

When you pivotally pray to let go, asking God to help you release those who have hurt you or are hurting you now, you'll experience the first stages of a fresh walk with God. Your hands will be free to help others who are hurting, and your soul will be free to live in peace toward God and those around you.
John Hull

More than anything else, contemplation is about creating a space in which a change of heart can occur and then a change in our behavior.
Jan Johnson

What do you do when nothing makes sense?...You must grab onto God.
Benedict J. Groeschel



Return to top of prayer quotes.

Share this page: