Prayer What To Ask Quotes & Sayings

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. Matthew 21:22 Before you pray, check to see whether you believe or doubt that you will be heard. If you are doubting or uncertain, or if you are merely trying a prayer to see what happens, your prayer won't be worth anything. For you aren't keeping your heart steady but letting it wobble back and forth. As a result, God cannot give anything to this kind of heart, just as you cannot give something to a person who doesn't hold her hand still. — Martin Luther

Choose to view life through God's eyes. This will not be easy because it doesn't come naturally to us. We cannot do this on our own. We have to allow God to elevate our vantage point. Start by reading His Word, the Bible ... Pray and ask God to transform your thinking. Let Him do what you cannot. Ask Him to give you an eternal, divine perspective. — Charles R. Swindoll

Do not be troubled if you do not immediately receive from God what you ask Him; for He desires to do something even greater for you, while you cling to Him in prayer. — Evagrius Ponticus

Prayer brings to us blessings which we need, and which only God can give, and which prayer can alone convey to us ... This service of prayer is not a mere rite, a ceremony through which we go, a sort of performance. Prayer is going to God for something needed and desired. Prayer is simply asking God to do for us what he has promised us he will do if we ask him ... Asking is man's part. Giving is God's part. The praying belongs to us. The answer belongs to God. — Gerhard Tersteegen

I felt sorry for the inhabitants and went into the forest to admonish the wolf in God's name not to eat any more sheep. I called him, he came - and do you know what his answer was? 'Francis, Francis,' he said, 'do not destroy God's prescribed order. The sheep feeds on grass, the wolf on sheep - that's the way God ordained it. Do not ask why; simply obey God's will and leave me free to enter the sheepfolds whenever I feel the pinch of hunger. I say my prayers just like Your Holiness. I say: "Our Father who reignest in the forests and hast commanded me to eat meat, Thy will be done. Give me this day my daily sheep so that my stomach may be filled, and I shall glorify Thy name. Great art Thou, Lord, who hast created mutton so delicious. And when the day cometh that I shall die, Grant, Lord, that I may be resurrected, and that with me may be resurrected all the sheep I have eaten - so that I may eat them again!"' That, Brother Leo, is what the wolf answered me. — Nikos Kazantzakis

God can delight in our courage to pray big prayers without necessarily giving us what we ask. Said another way, God can say yes to the heart of our prayer without saying yes to the request of our prayer. He will approve of the petitioner even when, for whatever reason, He can't approve the petition. I'm convinced God is more pleased — Beth Moore

Why pray? Evidently, God likes to be asked. God certainly does not need our wisdom or our knowledge, nor even the information contained in our prayers ("your Father knows what you need before you ask him"). But by inviting us into the partnership of creation, God also invites us into relationship. God is love, said the apostle John. God does not merely have love or feel love. God is love and cannot not love. As such, God yearns for relationship with the creatures made in his image. — Philip Yancey

Can I ask you, what is your relationship to God?"
"Limited," I say. "Limited with the exception of spontaneous prayer in times of distress. — A.M. Homes

Miss Alcasid commented. "You know, when you believe, when you have faith in what you ask for, even though how insignificant it may seem to others, as long as your prayer is said with pure intentions, it will be granted." (Chapter 18) — Ryanne Salve

It was a hollow victory they gave me. A crown ... it was the girl I prayed them for. Your sister, safe ... and mine again as she was meant to be. I ask you, Ned, what good is it to wear a crown? — George R R Martin

The most ernest prayer that I know is to ask for the life energy of the universe to come down into my body and let my mind become full and overflowing with peace and gratitude. Meditation is earnest prayer, and when prayer progress, it becomes true meditation.
No matter what prayer you offer, or from where, the key to prayer is sincerity. It isn't a certain posture that's important, but whatever you do, the important thing is not to lose the feeling of sincere devotion and earnestness. — Ilchi Lee

Let us realize that we can only fulfill our calling to bear much fruit by praying much. In Christ are hidden all the treasures that the people around us need. In Him, all God's children are blessed with all spiritual blessings. He is full of grace and truth. But, prayer, much prayer, strong believing prayer, is needed to bring about these blessings. And let us equally remember that we cannot appropriate the promise without first living a life given up for men. Many try to take the promise and then look around for what they can ask. This is not the way, but the very opposite. Get the heart burdened with the need of souls, and the command and power to save them will come to claim the promise. — Andrew Murray

We should not open our mouths too hastily upon approaching God. On the contrary, we first must ask God to show us what and how to pray before we make our request known to Him. Have we not consumed a great deal of time in the past asking for what we wanted? Why not now ask for what God wants? — Watchman Nee

Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him. Then why ask? The idea of prayer is not in order to get answers from God; prayer is perfect and complete oneness with God. If we pray because we want answers, we will get huffed with God. The answers come every time, but not always in the way we expect, and our spiritual huff shows a refusal to identify ourselves with our Lord in prayer; we are here to be living monuments of God's grace. — Oswald Chambers

Augustine wrote that God sometimes does not give us what we ask in prayer. Of His bounty, the Lord often grants not what we seek, so as to bestow something preferable. — Lauren F. Winner

At these words I was utterly stupefied and terror-stricken. I thought to myself, "With what tongue shall I address such majesty, seeing that all men ought to tremble in the presence of even an earthly prince? Who am I, that I should lift up mine eyes or raise my hands to the divine Majesty? The angels surround him. At his nod the earth trembles. And shall I, a miserable little pygmy, say 'I want this, I ask for that'? For I am dust and ashes and full of sin and I am speaking to the living, eternal and the true God. — Martin Luther

We have assurance that we shall be heard in what we pray, because we pray to that God that heareth prayer, and is the rewarder of all that come unto Him; and in His name, to whom God denieth nothing; and, therefore, howsoever we are not always answered at the present, or in the same kind that we desire, yet, sooner or later, we are sure to receive even above that we are able to ask or think, if we continue to sue unto Him according to His will. — James Ussher

I have found it helpful to say a prayer asking to understand the scriptures when I read them. Then I ask, "What does Heavenly Father want me to learn from this scripture?" He always helps. — Allan F. Packer

A key to improved prayer is to learn to ask the right questions. Consider changing from asking for the things you want to honestly seeking what He wants for you. Then as you learn His will, pray that you will be led to have the strength to fulfill it. — Richard G. Scott

When you are unsure whether or not something is wrong, ask yourself these questions: Does this glorify God? Can I offer a prayer of thanksgiving for it? Does it draw me closer to Christ, or does it make me preoccupied with this world? Will it harm my health or hurt me in some other way? Will it cause someone else to stumble spiritually or morally? I have never forgotten what a wise Christian said to me many years ago: When in doubt - don't! — Billy Graham

Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, 'Prove that you are a good person.' Another voice says, 'You'd better be ashamed of yourself.' There also is a voice that says, 'Nobody really cares about you,' and one that says, 'Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful.' But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, 'You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you.' That's the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen.
That's what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us 'my Beloved'. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Preface WITH THE ADVENT OF multiple modern English translations of the Bible being published over the last fifty years, Christians have come to realize that there can be a wide range of meanings and renderings of various words from the Bible in the original language. As a Hebrew teacher and student of ancient languages one of the most common questions I get is, "What is the best translation?" This is usually followed by the question, "Which translation is the closest to the original Biblical language?" The answer I give to both questions is, "All of them." With few exceptions, every translation and paraphrase of the Bible is done with much scholarship and prayer by the translators. Every translator is convinced that he or she has presented the best renderings for each word and firmly believes they have given the rendering that is closest to the original language. So we now ask the question as to why there are — Chaim Bentorah

We can't pray that God make our lives free of problems; this won't happen, and it is probably just as well. We can't ask Him to make us and those we love immune to diseases, because He can't do that. We can't ask Him to weave a magic spell around us so that bad things will only happen to other people, and never to us.
People who pray for miracles usually don't get miracles, any more than children who pray for bicycles, good grades, or good boyfriends get them as a result of praying. But people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left instead of they have lost, very often find their prayer answered. — Harold S. Kushner

To me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle. The witch doctor tries to convince us that we have to ask God for help, to spell out to him what we need, even to bribe him with prayer or cash on the line. — Frank Sinatra

A totally nondenominational prayer: Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that I be forgiven for anything I may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which I may be eligible after the destruction of my body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen. — Roger Zelazny

The will of God is revealed as you listen to the Spirit of God in the Word of God. The precepts and promises of the Bible teach us what to pray. They teach us what grace to ask for and for what work we need strength. On every page of the Bible there is subject matter for prayer. B. F. Westcott, a renowned nineteenth-century English Bible scholar, observed: "The petitions of true disciples are echoes (so to speak) of Christ's words. As He has spoken so they speak. Their prayer is only some fragment of His teaching transformed into a supplication, and so it will necessarily be heard."[50] One way to pray more effectively is to echo God's Word back to Him as you pray. We align our hearts with His heart as we pray His Words from our hearts. — Archie Parrish

Mind how you pray. Make real business of it. Let it never be a dead formality ... plead the promise in a truthful, business-like way ... Ask for what you want, because the Lord has promised it. Believe that you have the blessing, and go forth to your work in full assurance of it. Go from your knees singing, because the promise is fulfilled: thus will your prayer be answered ... the strength [not length] of your prayer ... wins ... God; and the strength of prayer lies in your faith in the promise which you pleaded before the Lord. — Charles Spurgeon

People still ask questions and hope the answers will be what they think they already know. They need to pray this prayer by an anonymous believer: From the cowardice that shrinks from new truths, From the laziness that is content with half-truths, From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth, O God of truth, deliver us! — Warren W. Wiersbe

We must learn to measure ourselves, not by our knowledge about God, not by our gifts and responsibilities in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our hearts. Many of us, I suspect, have no idea how impoverished we are at this level. Let us ask the Lord to show us. — J.I. Packer

Satan wants us to focus on the problem, not the Provider. He constantly points to what seems to be rather than to what God has promised to do. If we stop spending time with the Lord in prayer, the concerns of the physical world snatch our attention and dominate us, while the spiritual senses deaden and the promises fade.
I am absolutely convinced that the number one reason that Christians today don't pray more is because we do not grasp the connection between prayer and the promises of God. We are trying as individuals and churches to pray 'because we're supposed to' without a living faith in the promises of God concerning prayer. No faith life of any significance can be maintained by this 'ought-to' approach. There must be faith in God at the bottom.
...
When real faith in God arises, a certainty comes that when we call, he will answer ... that when we ask, we will receive ... that when we knock, the door will be opened ... — Jim Cymbala

Be very sure, my son, God is the only adviser to be trusted, and you must do what he tells you, even if it lead you to a stake, to be burned by the slow fire of poverty. - O my Father!" cried the old man, breaking out suddenly in prayer, "my soul is a flickering flame of which thou art the eternal, inextinguishable fire. I am blessed because thou art. Because thou art life, I live. Nothing can hurt me, because nothing can hurt thee. To thy care I leave my son, for thou lovest him as thou hast loved me. Deal with him as thou hast dealt with me. I ask for nothing, care for nothing but thy will. Strength is gone from me, but my life is hid in thee. I am a feeble old man, but I am dying into the eternal day of thy strength. — George MacDonald

You know, if you ain't poor, you might think it's the folks in them big ole fine brick churches that's doin all the carin and the prayin. I wish you coulda seen all them little circles a'homeless folks with their heads bowed and their eyes closed, whisperin what was on their hearts. Seemed like they didn't have nothin to give, but they was givin what they had, taken the time to knock on God's front door and ask Him to heal this woman that loved them. — Ron Hall

I have made a mistake. They condemn me to death and I ask for a boy to coach me for it. A red-headed boy, who gobbles his buttered bread and toddles to his horse with the seat of his pants wet, this is the young man they hope will get me on my knees, full of prayer. This is the young man I hope will be able to help me, although with what and how I cannot think. — Hannah Kent

I warm up with my mom and make sure I understand what the songs are about and make sure I'm using the right technique. To be honest with you, I really don't practice a lot ... Usually, I say a prayer and ask the Lord to sing with me and help me and stand on the stage with me. — Jackie Evancho

Prayer is asking God to incarnate, to get dirty in your life. Yes, the eternal God scrubs floors. For sure we know he washes feet. So take Jesus at his word. Ask him. Tell him what you want. Get dirty. Write out your prayer requests; don't mindlessly drift through life on the American narcotic of busyness. If you try to seize the day, the day will eventually break you. Seize the corner of his garment and don't let go until he blesses you. He will reshape the day. — Paul E. Miller

Ask God for what you want, but you cannot ask if you are not asking for a right thing. When you draw near to God, you cease from asking for things."Your Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask him." Then, why ask? That you may get to know Him. — Oswald Chambers

If we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for. 1 John 5:15 Don't get discouraged if you don't have or don't presently practice everything God desires of you. Pray for what you lack! When you pray God's will, you will receive what you ask! Pray for a heart and mind that diligently seeks Him. Then begin walking in faith, as one who already possesses what she has asked. Start seeking God through His Word and spending time in prayer, at the same time asking Him for a hunger and thirst to seek Him diligently. He will develop in you what you are seeking. He will give you everything you need for living in faith and belief! — Beth Moore

Her words echoed through her head as she entered her room. Ask God. She had been doing that. Or had she? Abigail stared at the floor. Had she really asked, or had she merely told God what she wanted and then waited for his approval of her plans? She feared she had done the latter. Perhaps that was why she hadn't received an answer. Slowly, she sank to her knees and bowed her head in prayer. Father in heaven, I'm sorry. I trust you. I know you have plans for me, and they're better than my plans. Show me your plan. There were no answers, nothing but the feeling of peace that filled her heart. That was enough for now. The answers would come. — Amanda Cabot

We do not pray to inform God of our needs, because He knows what we need before we ask.

What is prayer like for you?

Is it a religious ritual that you perform out of habit?

Is it a spiritual discipline that you practice because you want to be the best Christian you possibly can be?

Is it a mechanism by which you can bring your "shopping list" to God in order to have your needs met?

Or are you running to meet your Lover, to commune with Him, hungering to find your joy in Him, and to be fulfilled in His presence? — Bill Mills

Man," amended Karou, rising and
bending again in mock prayer. "Thank
you, gods, for this man - " She interrupted herself to ask Zuzana, in her normal voice, "Wait. Does that make you a woman?"
She only meant that it was strange to
go from thinking of Zuzana - and herself, too - as a girl to a woman. It just sounded weirdly old. But Zuzana's response, employing full eyebrow power in the service of lechery, was, "Why, yes, since you ask. This man did make me a woman. It hurt like holy hell at first, but it's gotten better." She grinned like an anime character. "So. Much. Better."
Poor Mik blushed like sunburn, and
Karou clamped her hands over her ears.
"La la la!" she sang, and when Ziri asked her what they were saying, she blushed, too, and did not explain - which only made him blush in turn, when he grasped the probable subject matter. — Laini Taylor

There is no better mirror in which to see your need than simply the Ten Commandments, in which you will find what you lack and what you should seek. If, therefore, you find in yourself a weak faith, small hope and little love toward God; and that you do not praise and honor God, but love your own honor and fame, think much of the favor of men, do not gladly hear mass and sermon, are indolent in prayer, in which things every one has faults, then you shall think more of these faults than of all bodily harm to goods, honor and life, and believe that they are worse than death and all mortal sickness. These you shall earnestly before God, lament and ask for help, and with all confidence expect help, and believe that you are heard and shall obtain help and mercy. — Martin Luther

Merrill Krause - You mentioned God's will for me. How will I know what that is, Father?
Bogart Krause - I've always believed it to start with prayer. The Good Book says that if a man wants wisdom, he just has to ask. I would imagine it works the same way for womenfolk. If you want to know what God's plan is
then I would ask Him. Couldn't hurt to search the Scriptures, too. And listen to what He is telling you inside. Even when you don't think you're hearing anything, keep listening. — Tracie Peterson

There is no other place where the heart should be so free as before the mercy seat. There, you can talk out your very soul, for that is the best prayer that you can present. Do not ask for what some tell you that you should ask for, but for that which you feel the need of, that which the Holy Spirit has made you to hunger and to thirst for, you ask for that. — Charles Spurgeon

Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration with exposition needs a great push. People ask me: 'What will convert America and save the world?' My answer is prayer. What we need is for every parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in holy hours of prayer. — Mother Teresa

I do not want God to give me what I want; I trust Him to give me what I need. The truth is, He is infinitely wiser than I am. If we always get what we ask for, I for one will cease to pray. — Gary Inrig

Were you to ask what are the means of overcoming temptations, I would answer: The first means is prayer; the second is prayer; the third is prayer; and you should you ask me a thousand times, I would repeat the same. — Alphonsus Liguori

Prayer is knowing that what I ask for is always far bigger than what I could ever articulate, but it is never too big for God to understand nor is it ever too vast for Him to deliver. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

We must never forget to pray, and to ask God to remember us when He is arranging things, so that we too may feel safe and have no anxiety about what is going to happen. — Johanna Spyri

When I listen to you, God
when I do what you ask me to,
I am like a tree
planted by a river,
a tree full of fruit
with leaves that are always green. Ps 1(paraphrased) — Marie-Helene Delval

Should it concern us that the bible never calls us to ask Jesus into our hearts. Should it concern us that the bible never mentions such a superstitious sinners prayer and yet that is exactly what we have sold to so many as salvation. — David Platt

True prayer is only another name for the love of God. Its excellence does not consist in the multitude of our words; for our Father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask Him. The true prayer is that of the heart, and the heart prays only for what it desires. To pray, then is to desire
but to desire what God would have us desire. He who asks what he does not from the bottom of his heart desire, is mistaken in thinking that he prays. — Francois Fenelon

Your prayer must be for a healthy mind in a sound body. Ask for a brave soul that has no fear of death, deems length of life the least of nature's gifts and is able to bear any kind of sufferings, knows neither wrath nor desire and believes the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than the loves and feasts and downy cushions of Sardanapalus. Reveal what you are able to give yourself; the only path to a life of tranquility lies through virtue. — Juvenal

RIGOROUS HONESTY Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A.A.'s message to the next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn't care for this prospect - unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 24 I am an alcoholic. If I drink I will die. My, what power, energy, and emotion this simple statement generates in me! But it's really all I need to know for today. Am I willing to stay alive today? Am I willing to stay sober today? Am I willing to ask for help and am I willing to be a help to another suffering alcoholic today? Have I discovered the fatal nature of my situation? What must I do, today, to stay sober? — Alcoholics Anonymous

Pray each morning and each night.
Talk to God and be polite.
Tell Him what you're grateful for.
Leave your troubles at His door.
Share your wishes, needs, and hopes.
Ask God how to bravely cope.
Tell Him all you learned today.
Say the things you need to say.
Beg forgiveness for your sins.
Pray to live with Him again.
Speak with earnest heart and soul.
He will listen. This I know.
For prayer is hope put to the test.
And hope is faith in what is best.
Faith is power to do great things.
Thus, prayer is faith's enabling wings. — Richelle E. Goodrich

So let us all who pray ask for what most of them need badly, a sense of humor to lighten their way through life, making it merrier for themselves and easier for others. — Sean O'Casey

YOU HAVE the right to my help. I am your creator. Your problems are my problems. Ask me for help. I give it to you gladly. I am saddened when you try to live alone. My desire for you is union and fulfillment. I am your answered prayer. I am always what you seek. — Julia Cameron

He may delay because it would not be safe to give us at once what we ask: we are not ready for it. To give ere we could truly receive, would be to destroy the very heart and hope of prayer, to cease to be our Father. The delay itself may work to bring us nearer to our help, to increase the desire, perfect the prayer, and ripen the receptive condition. — George MacDonald

"But if God is so good as you represent Him, and if He knows all that we need, and better far than we do ourselves, why should it be necessary to ask Him for anything?" I answer, "What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God's idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need - the need of Himself?" — George MacDonald

If we are talking about a loving God, we are talking about a God who asks us to trust him, whether we get what we ask for or don't. But he will never force us to trust him. That is entirely up to us. We have free will and we can accept his love or reject it, or claim it doesn't exist at all. We can trust him or distrust him as we like. But if he really and truly is the God of the Bible, who loves me with an unchanging and self-sacrificial love (agape), then I really and truly can trust him in all circumstances, which is tremendously freeing. In fact, I can go one step further than trusting him. To use a biblical phrase, I can rejoice in him. But is only possible if we really do know that God has our best interests at heart at all times. Of course, we have to decide on our own whether we believe that. But if we come to see that, that is true and do allow ourselves to believe it, we are precisely where he created us to be: in his loving hands. — Eric Metaxas

Whether, therefore, we receive what we ask for, or do not receive it, let us still continue steadfast in prayer. For to fail in obtaining the desires of our heart, when God so wills it, is not worse than to receive it; for we know not as He does, what is profitable to us. — Saint John Chrysostom

Often, we try to tell God what we want Him to do - but ask Him to help you guard against this, and to seek His will instead of your own. Pray and ask God to guide you. — Billy Graham

For all prayer is answered. Don't tell God how to answer it. Make thy wants known to Him. Live as if ye expected them to be answered. For He has given, What ye ask in my name, believing, that will my Father in heaven give to thee. — Edgar Cayce

Cha-Cha favored short, earnest prayer, and he often wondered what took others so long., It had something to do with excess supplication, he suspected. He never presented a long list of specific requests to God, had always felt uncomfortable with the presumptuousness of "Ask and you shall receive." This might have been a result of pride, or his own middling ambition, but mostly Cha-Cha's prayers were a series of thank-yous and I'm sorrys. — Angela Flournoy

For this is Wisdom; to love, to live
To take what fate, or the Gods may give.
To ask no questions, to make no prayer,
To kiss the lips and caress the hair,
Spend passion's ebb as you greet its flow
To have, -to hold -and -in time, -let go! — Laurence Hope

Destructive behavior - or simply behavior that constantly annoys your spouse to the point of desperation - is not right, and there will always be a serious consequence for it in your marriage and personal life. But every attempt you make to rid yourself of that behavior and do what's right will bring reward.
Today, ask God to help break any bad habits that you or your spouse may have. — Stormie O'martian

Luther could say, 'It is not a bad, but a very good sign if the opposite of what we pray for appears to happen. Just as it is not a good sign if our prayers eventuate in the fulfillment of all we ask for. If everything were to go the way I want it, I would end up in that kind of false security which is really an instrument of the divine judgment. — Alan F. Johnson

For this is wisdom- to love and live To take what fate or the Gods may give, To ask no question, to make no prayer, To kiss the lips and caress the hair, Speed passion's ebb as we greet its flow, To have and to hold, and, in time
let go. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox

[91] Why Should It Be Necessary? "But if God is so good as you represent Him, and if He knows all that we need, and better far than we do ourselves, why should it be necessary to ask Him for anything?" I answer, What if He knows Prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God's idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need - the need of Himself? ... Hunger may drive the runaway child home, and he may or may not be fed at once, but he needs his mother more than his dinner. — George MacDonald

If we separate our mundane needs (doing) from God's best gift, his loving presence (being), then we are overspiritualizing prayer. If we ask nothing of God, we are left adrift in an evil world. Such a position may feel spiritual because it seems unselfish, but it is unbiblical because it separates the real world of our desires from God's world. The kingdom can't come because it is floating. By discounting the spiritual and physical worlds, Neoplatonism did exactly what the Enlightenment did. The only difference was Neoplatonism valued the spiritual while the Enlightenment valued the physical. So the church is influenced by Neoplatonism (the physical isn't important), and the world is shaped by the Enlightenment (the spiritual isn't important). Both perspectives stifled honest, person-to-person praying in the church. — Paul E. Miller

Give your intentions in prayer to God, Who knows everyone, even before our birth. And do not ask that everything will be according to your will, because a man does not know what is profitable for him. But say to God: Let Thy will be done! For He does everything for our benefit. — Gennadius Of Constantinople

It's important that you keep asking God to show you what He wants you to do. If you don't ask, you won't know. — Stormie O'martian

If God was going to do what He thought was best anyway, why bother to ask for anything one wanted? If you prayed, and God thought that what you asked should be granted, He would grant it. If you did not pray, and it was true that God always acted in one's best interest, you would receive whatever He wanted you to receive anyway.Prayer, thought Allison, was a dreadfully unfair, rather unsportsmanlike affair, with all the advantages on one side. — Grace Metalious

What does a lighthouse do? I ask myself. It never moves. It cannot hike up its rocky skirt and dash into the ocean to rescue the foundering ship. It cannot calm the waters or clear the shoals. It can only cast light into the darkness. It can only point the way. Yet, through one lighthouse, you guide many ships. Show this old lighthouse the way. — Lisa Wingate

I do not always ask, in my prayers and discussions, for only those things I would like to see happen, because no man can claim to know what is best for mankind. Wakan Tanka and Grandfather alone know what is best, and this is why, even though I am worried, my attitude is not overcome with fear of the future. I submit always to Wakan Tanka's will. This is not easy, and most people find it impossible, but I have seen the power of Prayer and I have seen God's desires fulfilled. So I pray always that God will give me wisdom to accept his way of doing things. — Frank Fools Crow

I will tell no one what I know of the two of you. But I would ask one small price for my silence. (Damien)
And that is? (Rowena)
If you still believe in God, then say a prayer for me. He turned a deaf ear to my pleas long ago. (Damien) — Kinley MacGregor

I've come down from the sky
like some damned ghost, delayed
too long ... To the abandoned fields
the trees returned and grew.
They stand and grow. Time comes
To them, time goes, the trees
Stand; the only place
They go is where they are.
Those wholly patient ones ...
They do no wrong, and they
Are beautiful. What more
Could we have thought to ask? ...
I stand and wait for light
to open the dark night.
I stand and wait for prayer
to come and find me here.
Sabbaths 2000 IX — Wendell Berry

My prayer today is to become more mindful of my personal actions. What motivates me to do what I do and to say the things I do to others? I often dismiss my actions because of stress or anger but the people I hurt along the way do not dismiss what I've said or done. Every action and every word carries a consequence. Every person has stress and every person has anger. I would not like to be someone's target and I ask for the grace to become more mindful not to harm others just because I am having a bad day. — Caroline Myss

Prayer can be a tricky thing, because there are passages that say do not doubt and believe you have received whatever you ask for and you will, but then Jesus prayed 'Not my will by thy will be done.' Ultimately, we can't tell God what to do. He will accomplish, in our lives, whatever He wants to accomplish. God is God and we are not. — Lisa Bedrick

According to the Bible, a genuine answer to prayer is getting what you ask for. — John R. Rice

We are gradually losing the art of silence. Of walking down the street lost in our own thoughts. Of closing the door to our rooms and being quiet. Of sitting on a park bench and just thinking. We may fear silence because we fear what we might hear from the deepest parts of ourselves. We may be afraid to hear that "still small" voice. What might it say? Might it ask us to change? — James Martin

In prayer we can approach God with complete assurance of His ability to answer us. There is no limit to what we can ask, if it is according to His will. — John F. Walvoord