A word about prayer

«The Prayer» redirects here. For the Jesus Prayer, see Jesus Prayer.

Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deified ancestor. More generally, prayer can also have the purpose of thanksgiving or praise, and in comparative religion is closely associated with more abstract forms of meditation and with charms or spells.^[1]

Prayer can take a variety of forms: it can be part of a set liturgy or ritual, and it can be performed alone or in groups. Prayer may take the form of a hymn, incantation, formal creedal statement, or a spontaneous utterance in the praying person.

The act of prayer is attested in written sources as early as 5000 years ago. Today, most major religions involve prayer in one way or another; some ritualize the act, requiring a strict sequence of actions or placing a restriction on who is permitted to pray, while others teach that prayer may be practised spontaneously by anyone at any time.

Scientific studies regarding the use of prayer have mostly concentrated on its effect on the healing of sick or injured people. The efficacy of prayer in faith healing has been evaluated in numerous studies, with contradictory results.

Etymology[edit]

The English term prayer is from Medieval Latin: precaria, lit. ‘petition, prayer’.^[2] The Vulgate Latin is oratio, which translates Greek προσευχή^[3] in turn the Septuagint translation of Biblical Hebrew תְּפִלָּה tĕphillah.^[4]

Act of prayer[edit]

Various spiritual traditions offer a wide variety of devotional acts. There are morning and evening prayers, graces said over meals, and reverent physical gestures. Some Christians bow their heads and fold their hands. Some Native Americans regard dancing as a form of prayer.^[5] Some Sufis whirl.^[6] Hindus chant mantras.^[7] Jewish prayer may involve swaying back and forth and bowing.^[8] Muslim prayer involves bowing, kneeling and prostration. Quakers keep silent.^[9] Some pray according to standardized rituals and liturgies, while others prefer extemporaneous prayers. Still others combine the two.

Friedrich Heiler is often cited in Christian circles for his systematic Typology of Prayer which lists six types of prayer: primitive, ritual, Greek cultural, philosophical, mystical, and prophetic.^[10] Some forms of prayer require a prior ritualistic form of cleansing or purification such as in ghusl and wudhu.^[11]

Prayer may be done privately and individually, or it may be done corporately in the presence of fellow believers. Prayer can be incorporated into a daily «thought life», in which one is in constant communication with a god. Some people pray throughout all that is happening during the day and seek guidance as the day progresses. This is actually regarded as a requirement in several Christian denominations,^[12] although enforcement is not possible nor desirable. There can be many different answers to prayer, just as there are many ways to interpret an answer to a question, if there in fact comes an answer.^[12] Some may experience audible, physical, or mental epiphanies. If indeed an answer comes, the time and place it comes is considered random.
Some outward acts that sometimes accompany prayer are: anointing with oil;^[13] ringing a bell;^[14] burning incense or paper;^[15] lighting a candle or candles; See, for example, facing a specific direction (i.e. towards Mecca^[16] or the East); making the sign of the cross. One less noticeable act related to prayer is fasting.

A variety of body postures may be assumed, often with specific meaning (mainly respect or adoration) associated with them: standing; sitting; kneeling; prostrate on the floor; eyes opened; eyes closed; hands folded or clasped; hands upraised; holding hands with others; a laying on of hands and others. Prayers may be recited from memory, read from a book of prayers, or composed spontaneously as they are prayed. They may be said, chanted, or sung. They may be with musical accompaniment or not. There may be a time of outward silence while prayers are offered mentally. Often, there are prayers to fit specific occasions, such as the blessing of a meal, the birth or death of a loved one, other significant events in the life of a believer, or days of the year that have special religious significance. Details corresponding to specific traditions are outlined below.

Origins and early history[edit]

Anthropologically, the concept of prayer is closely related to that of surrender and supplication.
The traditional posture of prayer in medieval Europe is kneeling or supine with clasped hands, in antiquity more typically with raised hands. The early Christian prayer posture was standing, looking up to heaven, with outspread arms and bare head. This is the pre-Christian, pagan prayer posture (except for the bare head, which was prescribed for males in Corinthians 11:4, in Roman paganism, the head had to be covered in prayer). Certain Cretan and Cypriote figures of the Late Bronze Age, with arms raised, have been interpreted as worshippers. Their posture is similar to the «flight» posture, a crouching posture with raised hands, observed in schizophrenic patients and related to the universal «hands up» gesture of surrender. The kneeling posture with clasped hands appears to have been introduced only with the beginning high medieval period, presumably adopted from a gesture of feudal homage.^[18]

Although prayer in its literal sense is not used in animism, communication with the spirit world is vital to the animist way of life. This is usually accomplished through a shaman who, through a trance, gains access to the spirit world and then shows the spirits’ thoughts to the people. Other ways to receive messages from the spirits include using astrology or contemplating fortune tellers and healers.^[19]

Some of the oldest extant literature, such as the Kesh temple hymn (c. 26th century BC) are liturgy addressed to deities and thus technically «prayer». The Egyptian Pyramid Texts of about the same period similarly contain spells or incantations addressed to the gods. In the loosest sense, in the form of magical thinking combined with animism, prayer has been argued as representing a human cultural universal, which would have been present since the emergence of behavioral modernity, by anthropologists such as Sir Edward Burnett Tylor and Sir James George Frazer.^[20]

Reliable records are available for the polytheistic religions of the Iron Age, most notably Ancient Greek religion (which strongly influenced Roman religion). These religious traditions were direct developments of the earlier Bronze Age religions.
Ceremonial prayer was highly formulaic and ritualized.^[21][22]

In ancient polytheism, ancestor worship is indistinguishable from theistic worship (see also Euhemerism).
Vestiges of ancestor worship persist, to a greater or lesser extent, in modern religious traditions throughout the world, most notably in Japanese Shinto and in Chinese folk religion. The practices involved in Shinto prayer are heavily influenced by Buddhism; Japanese Buddhism has also been strongly influenced by Shinto in turn. Shinto prayers quite frequently consist of wishes or favors asked of the kami, rather than lengthy praises or devotions. The practice of votive offering is also universal, and is attested at least since the Bronze Age. In Shinto, this takes the form of a small wooden tablet, called an ema.

Prayers in Etruscan were used in the Roman world by augurs and other oracles long after Etruscan became a dead language. The Carmen Arvale and the Carmen Saliare are two specimens of partially preserved prayers that seem to have been unintelligible to their scribes, and whose language is full of archaisms and difficult passages.^[23]

Roman prayers and sacrifices were often envisioned as legal bargains between deity and worshipper. The Roman principle was expressed as do ut des: «I give, so that you may give.» Cato the Elder’s treatise on agriculture contains many examples of preserved traditional prayers; in one, a farmer addresses the unknown deity of a possibly sacred grove, and sacrifices a pig in order to placate the god or goddess of the place and beseech his or her permission to cut down some trees from the grove.^[24]

Celtic, Germanic and Slavic religions are recorded much later, and much more fragmentarily, than the religions of classical antiquity. They nevertheless show substantial parallels to the better-attested religions of the Iron Age. In the case of Germanic religion, the practice of prayer is reliably attested, but no actual liturgy is recorded from the early (Roman era) period. An Old Norse prayer is on record in the form of a dramatization in skaldic poetry. This prayer is recorded in stanzas 2 and 3 of the poem Sigrdrífumál, compiled in the 13th century Poetic Edda from earlier traditional sources, where the valkyrie Sigrdrífa prays to the gods and the earth after being woken by the hero Sigurd.^[25]
A prayer to Odin is mentioned in chapter 2 of the Völsunga saga where King Rerir prays for a child. In stanza 9 of the poem Oddrúnargrátr, a prayer is made to «kind wights, Frigg and Freyja, and many gods^[26] In chapter 21 of Jómsvíkinga saga, wishing to turn the tide of the Battle of Hjörungavágr, Haakon Sigurdsson eventually finds his prayers answered by the goddesses Þorgerðr Hölgabrúðr and Irpa.^[27]
Folk religion in the medieval period produced syncretisms between pre-Christian and Christian traditions. An example is the 11th-century Anglo-Saxon charm Æcerbot for the fertility of crops and land, or the medical Wið færstice.^[28] The 8th-century Wessobrunn Prayer has been proposed as a Christianized pagan prayer and compared to the pagan Völuspá^[29] and the Merseburg Incantations, the latter recorded in the 9th or 10th century but of much older traditional origins.^[30]

In Australian Aboriginal mythology, prayers to the «Great Wit» are performed by the «clever men» and «clever women», or kadji.^{[citation needed]} These Aboriginal shamans use maban or mabain, the material that is believed to give them their purported magical powers.^[31] The Pueblo Indians are known to have used prayer sticks, that is, sticks with feathers attached as supplicatory offerings. The Hopi Indians used prayer sticks as well, but they attached to it a small bag of sacred meal.^[32]

Approaches to prayer[edit]

Direct petitions[edit]

There are different forms of prayer. One of them is to directly appeal to a deity to grant one’s requests.^[33] Some have termed this as the social approach to prayer.^[34]

Atheist arguments against prayer are mostly directed against petitionary prayer in particular. Daniel Dennett argued that petitionary prayer might have the undesirable psychological effect of relieving a person of the need to take active measures.^[35]

This potential drawback manifests in extreme forms in such cases as Christian Scientists who rely on prayers instead of seeking medical treatment for family members for easily curable conditions which later result in death.^[36]

Christopher Hitchens (2012) argued that praying to a god which is omnipotent and all-knowing would be presumptuous. For example, he interprets Ambrose Bierce’s definition of prayer by stating that «the man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right.»^[37]

Educational approach[edit]

In this view, prayer is not a conversation. Rather, it is meant to inculcate certain attitudes in the one who prays, but not to influence. Among Jews, this has been the approach of Rabbenu Bachya, Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, Joseph Albo, Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Joseph B. Soloveitchik. This view is expressed by Rabbi Nosson Scherman in the overview to the Artscroll Siddur (p. XIII).

Among Christian theologians, E.M. Bounds stated the educational purpose of prayer in every chapter of his book, The Necessity of Prayer. Prayer books such as the Book of Common Prayer are both a result of this approach and an exhortation to keep it.^[38]

Rationalist approach[edit]

In this view, the ultimate goal of prayer is to help train a person to focus on divinity through philosophy and intellectual contemplation (meditation). This approach was taken by the Jewish scholar and philosopher Maimonides^[39] and the other medieval rationalists.^[40] It became popular in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic intellectual circles, but never became the most popular understanding of prayer among the laity in any of these faiths. In all three of these faiths today, a significant minority of people still hold to this approach.

In a rationalist approach, praying encompasses three aspects. First, ‘logos’, as the «idea» of the sender, secondly ‘rhemata’ as the words to express the idea, and thirdly ‘rhemata’ and ‘logos’, to where the idea is sent (e.g. to God, Allah). Thus praying is not a conversation with God, or Jesus but a one-way direction to the divine.^[41] Among the Abrahamic religions, Islam, Orthodox Christianity and Hasidic Judaism are likely most adhering to this concept, also because it does not allow secondary mythologies, and has taken its spiritual roots from Hellenistic philosophy, particularly from Aristotle.^[42]

Similarly in Hinduism, the different divinities are manifestations of one God with associated prayers. However, many Indians – particularly Hindus – believe that God can be manifest in people, including in people of lower castes, such as Sadhus.^[43]

Experiential approach[edit]

In this approach, the purpose of prayer is to enable the person praying to gain a direct experience of the recipient of the prayer (or as close to direct as a specific theology permits). This approach is very significant in Christianity and widespread in Judaism (although less popular theologically). In Eastern Orthodoxy, this approach is known as hesychasm. It is also widespread in Sufi Islam, and in some forms of mysticism. It has some similarities with the rationalist approach, since it can also involve contemplation, although the contemplation is not generally viewed as being as rational or intellectual.

Christian and Roman Catholic traditions also include an experiential approach to prayer within the practice of lectio divina. Historically a Benedictine practice, lectio divina involves the following steps: a short scripture passage is read aloud; the passage is meditated upon using the mind to place the listener within a relationship or dialogue with the text; recitation of a prayer; and concludes with contemplation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes prayer and meditation as follows:^[44]

Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversion of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ. Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, as in lectio divina or the rosary. This form of prayerful reflection is of great value, but Christian prayer should go further: to the knowledge of the love of the Lord Jesus, to union with him.

The experience of God within Christian mysticism has been contrasted with the concept of experiential religion or mystical experience because of a long history or authors living and writing about experience with the divine in a manner that identifies God as unknowable and ineffable, the language of such ideas could be characterized paradoxically as «experiential», as well as without the phenomena of experience.^[45]

The notion of «religious experience» can be traced back to William James, who used a term called «religious experience» in his book, The Varieties of Religious Experience.^{[46][citation not found]} The origins of the use of this term can be dated further back.

In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, several historical figures put forth very influential views that religion and its beliefs can be grounded in experience itself. While Kant held that moral experience justified religious beliefs, John Wesley in addition to stressing individual moral exertion thought that the religious experiences in the Methodist movement (paralleling the Romantic Movement) were foundational to religious commitment as a way of life.^[47] According to catholic doctrine, methodists lack a ritualistic and rational approach to praying but rely on individualistic and moralistic forms of worship in direct conversation with God. This approach is rejected by most Orthodox religions.^[48]

Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of «religious experience» to the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), who argued that religion is based on a feeling of the infinite. The notion of «religious experience» was used by Schleiermacher and Albert Ritschl to defend religion against the growing scientific and secular critique, and defend the view that human (moral and religious) experience justifies religious beliefs.

Such religious empiricism would be later seen as highly problematic and was – during the period in-between world wars – famously rejected by Karl Barth.^[49] In the 20th century, religious as well as moral experience as justification for religious beliefs still holds sway. Some influential modern scholars holding this liberal theological view are Charles Raven and the Oxford physicist/theologian Charles Coulson.^[50]

The notion of «religious experience» was adopted by many scholars of religion, of whom William James was the most influential.^[51][a]

The notion of «experience» has been criticised.^{[56][57][citation not found][58][citation not found]} Robert Sharf points out that «experience» is a typical Western term, which has found its way into Asian religiosity via western influences.^[59][b] The notion of «experience» introduces a false notion of duality between «experiencer» and «experienced», whereas the essence of kensho is the realisation of the «non-duality» of observer and observed.^{[60][citation not found][61][citation not found]} «Pure experience» does not exist; all experience is mediated by intellectual and cognitive activity.^{[62][citation not found][63][citation not found]} The specific teachings and practices of a specific tradition may even determine what «experience» someone has, which means that this «experience» is not the proof of the teaching, but a result of the teaching.^{[64][citation not found]} A pure consciousness without concepts, reached by «cleaning the doors of perception»,^[c] would be an overwhelming chaos of sensory input without coherence.^{[66][citation not found]}

Abrahamic religions[edit]

Hebrew Bible[edit]

In the Hebrew Bible prayer is an evolving means of interacting with God, most frequently through a spontaneous, individual, unorganized form of petitioning and/or thanking. Standardized prayer such as is done today is non-existent, although beginning in Deuteronomy, the Bible lays the groundwork for organized prayer, including basic liturgical guidelines, and by the Bible’s later books, prayer has evolved to a more standardized form, although still radically different from the form practiced by modern Jews.

Individual prayer is described by the Tanakh two ways. The first of these is when prayer is described as occurring, and a result is achieved, but no further information regarding a person’s prayer is given. In these instances, such as with Isaac,^[67] Moses,^[68] Samuel,^[69] and Job,^[70] the act of praying is a method of changing a situation for the better. The second way in which prayer is depicted is through fully fleshed out episodes of prayer, where a person’s prayer is related in full. Many famous biblical personalities have such a prayer, including every major character from Hannah to Hezekiah.^[71]

New Testament[edit]

In the New Testament prayer is presented as a positive command.^[72] The People of God are challenged to include Christian prayer in their everyday life, even in the busy struggles of marriage^[73] as it brings people closer to God.

Jesus encouraged his disciples to pray in secret in their private rooms, using the Lord’s Prayer, as a humble response to the prayer of the Pharisees, whose practices in prayer were regarded as impious by the New Testament writers.^[74]

For evanglists and other Christian sects, prayer is shown to be God’s appointed method by which we obtain what He has to bestow.^[75] Further, the Book of James says that the lack of blessings in life results from a failure to pray.^[76] Jesus healed through prayer and expected his followers to do so also.^[77] The apostle Paul wrote to the churches of Thessalonica to «Pray continually.»^[78]

Judaism[edit]

Observant Jews pray three times a day, Shacharit, Mincha, and Ma’ariv with lengthier prayers on special days, such as the Shabbat and Jewish holidays including Musaf and the reading of the Torah. The siddur is the prayerbook used by Jews all over the world, containing a set order of daily prayers. Jewish prayer is usually described as having two aspects: kavanah (intention) and keva (the ritualistic, structured elements).

The most important Jewish prayers are the Shema Yisrael («Hear O Israel») and the Amidah («the standing prayer»).

Communal prayer is preferred over solitary prayer, and a quorum of ten adult males (a minyan) is considered by Orthodox Judaism a prerequisite for several communal prayers.

There are also many other ritualistic prayers a Jew performs during their day, such as washing before eating bread, washing after one wakes up in the morning, and doing grace after meals.

Rationalist approach[edit]

In this view, the ultimate goal of prayer is to help train a person to focus on divinity through philosophy and intellectual contemplation. This approach was taken by Maimonides and the other medieval rationalists. One example of this approach to prayer is noted by Rabbi Steven Weil, who was appointed the Orthodox Union’s Executive-Vice President in 2009. He notes that the word «prayer» is a derivative of the Latin «precari», which means «to beg». The Hebrew equivalent «tefilah», however, along with its root «pelel» or its reflexive «l’hitpallel», means the act of self-analysis or self-evaluation.^[79] This approach is sometimes described as the person praying having a dialogue or conversation with God.^[80]

Educational approach[edit]

In this view, prayer is not a conversation. Rather, it is meant to inculcate certain attitudes in the one who prays, but not to influence. This has been the approach of Rabbenu Bachya, Yehuda Halevy, Joseph Albo, Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Joseph Dov Soloveitchik. This view is expressed by Rabbi Nosson Scherman in the overview to the Artscroll Siddur (p. XIII); note that Scherman goes on to also affirm the Kabbalistic view (see below).

Kabbalistic approach[edit]

Kabbalah uses a series of kavanot, directions of intent, to specify the path the prayer ascends in the dialog with God, to increase its chances of being answered favorably. Kabbalists ascribe a higher meaning to the purpose of prayer, which is no less than affecting the very fabric of reality itself, restructuring and repairing the universe in a real fashion. In this view, every word of every prayer, and indeed, even every letter of every word, has a precise meaning and a precise effect. Prayers thus literally affect the mystical forces of the universe, and repair the fabric of creation.^[81]

Among Jews, this approach has been taken by the Chassidei Ashkenaz (German pietists of the Middle-Ages), the Arizal’s Kabbalist tradition, Ramchal, most of Hassidism, the Vilna Gaon, and Jacob Emden.

Christianity[edit]

Christian prayers are quite varied. They can be completely spontaneous, or read entirely from a text, like the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. The most common prayer among Christians is the Lord’s Prayer, which according to the gospel accounts (e.g. Matthew 6:9–13) is how Jesus taught his disciples to pray.^[83] The Lord’s Prayer is a model for prayers of adoration, confession and petition in Christianity.^[83]

In the second century Apostolic Tradition, Hippolytus instructed Christians to pray at seven fixed prayer times: «on rising, at the lighting of the evening lamp, at bedtime, at midnight» and «the third, sixth and ninth hours of the day, being hours associated with Christ’s Passion.»^[84][85] Breviaries such as the Shehimo and Agpeya are used by Oriental Orthodox Christians to pray these seven canonical hours while facing in the eastward direction of prayer.^[86][87]

In medieval England, prayers (particularly the paternoster) were frequently used as a measure of time in medical and culinary recipe books.^[88]

Christians generally pray to God. Some Christians, such as Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox, and Methodists pray for the dead;^[89][90] Roman Catholics, will also ask the righteous in heaven and «in Christ,» such as the Virgin Mary or other saints to intercede by praying on their behalf (intercession of saints). Formulaic closures in many Christian denominations, such as Lutheranism and Catholicism include «through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, through all the ages of ages,» and «in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.»^[91]

It is customary among Christians to end prayers with «In Jesus’ name, Amen» or more commonly, with the sign of the cross while saying the Trinitarian formula.^[91][92] The most commonly used closure of prayer in Christianity is «Amen» (from a Hebrew adverb used as a statement of affirmation or agreement, usually translated as so be it).

In the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, probably the most common is the Rosary; in the Eastern Christianity (including the Eastern Catholic Churches of the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church), the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer is also often repeated as part of the meditative hesychasm practice in Eastern Christianity.^[93]

Latin Catholic tradition includes specific prayers and devotions as acts of reparation which do not involve a petition for a living or deceased beneficiary, but aim to repair the sins of others, e.g. for the repair of the sin of blasphemy performed by others.^[94]

Pentecostalism[edit]

In Pentecostal congregations, prayer is often accompanied by speaking in an unknown tongue, a practice now known as glossolalia.^[95] Practitioners of Pentecostal glossolalia may claim that the languages they speak in prayer are real foreign languages, and that the ability to speak those languages spontaneously is a gift of the Holy Spirit.^[96][97][98] Some people outside of the movement, however, have offered dissenting views. George Barton Cutten suggested that glossolalia was a sign of mental illness.^[99] Felicitas Goodman suggested that tongue speakers were under a form of hypnosis.^[100] Others suggest that it is a learned behaviour.^[101][102] Some of these views have allegedly been refuted.^[103][104]

Christian Science[edit]

Christian Science teaches that prayer is a spiritualization of thought or an understanding of God and of the nature of the underlying spiritual creation. Adherents believe that this can result in healing, by bringing spiritual reality into clearer focus in the human scene. The world as it appears to the senses is regarded as a distorted version of the world of spiritual ideas. Prayer can heal the distortion. Christian Scientists believe that prayer does not change the spiritual creation but gives a clearer view of it, and the result appears in the human scene as healing: the human picture adjusts to coincide more nearly with the divine reality.^[105] Christian Scientists do not practice intercessory prayer as it is commonly understood, and they generally avoid combining prayer with medical treatment in the belief that the two practices tend to work against each other. Prayer works through love: the recognition of God’s creation as spiritual, intact, and inherently lovable.^[106]

Islam[edit]

The Arabic word for prayer is salah. In Islam, five daily obligatory prayers are considered one of the pillars of the religion. The command of ritual prayer repeatedly occurs in the Quran. The person performs the prayer while they are facing the Kaaba in Mecca. There is the «call for prayer» (the adhan), where the muezzin calls for all the followers to stand together for the prayer. The prayer consists of actions such as glorifying and praising God (such as mentioning ‘Allāhu Akbar’ (God is Great)) while standing, recitation of chapters of the Quran (such as the opening chapter of the book (Al-Fatiha)), bowing down then praising God, prostrating (sujud) then again praising God. It ends with the words: «Peace be with you and God’s mercy.» During the prayer, a Muslim cannot talk or do anything else besides pray. Once the prayer is complete, one can offer personal prayers or supplications to God for their needs, known as dua. There are many standard invocations in Arabic to be recited at various times (e.g. after the prayer) and for various occasions (e.g. for one’s parents) with manners and etiquette such as before eating. Muslims may also say dua in their own words and languages for any issue they wish to communicate with God in the hope that God will answer their prayers.^[16] Certain Shi’a sects pray the five daily prayers divided into three separate parts of the day, providing several Hadith as supporting evidence;^[107] although according to Shia Islam, it is also permissible to pray at five times.^[108]

Mandaeism[edit]

Daily prayer in Mandaeism called brakha consists of a set prayers that are recited three times per day.^[109] Mandaeans stand facing north while reciting daily prayers.^[110] Unlike in Islam and Coptic Orthodox Christianity, prostration is not practiced.

Mandaean priests recite rahma prayers^[111][112] three times every day, while laypeople also recite the Rushma (signing prayer) and Asiet Malkia («Healing of Kings») daily.^[109]

The three prayer times in Mandaeism are:^[113][111]

• dawn (sunrise)
• noontime (the «seventh hour»)
• evening (sunset)

Baháʼí Faith[edit]

Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, and `Abdu’l-Bahá wrote many prayers for general use, and some for specific occasions, including for unity, detachment, spiritual upliftment, and healing among others. Followers of the Baháʼí Faith are also required to recite each day one of three obligatory prayers composed by Bahá’u’lláh. The believers have been enjoined to face in the direction of the Qiblih when reciting their Obligatory Prayer. The longest obligatory prayer may be recited at any time during the day; another, of medium length, is recited once in the morning, once at midday, and once in the evening; and the shortest can be recited anytime between noon and sunset. Baháʼís also read from and meditate on the scriptures every morning and evening.^[114]

Baptism[edit]

Baptists and their prayers play a special role in Christianity, and represent the more theologic and rational approach to Christian praying. Since John the Baptist was a scholar of the original Hebrew scrolls and also adhered to hellenistic philosophy, he was a subject in the Koran and thus accepted in Islam and Orthodox religions. Modern baptists also practice social representation (e.g. work, or altruistic activities) as a form of prayer. In essence, it can be said that Baptists are socialized Christians that themselves accept the Koran and the practice of muslim prayers. Islam has preserved the tradition of baptizing in the form of ablution and ritual Ghusl for purification purposes.^[115][116]

Eastern religions[edit]

In both Buddhism and Hinduism, the repetition of mantras is closely related to the practice of repetitive prayer in Western religion (rosary, Jesus prayer) but Buddhists do not pray to a higher deity. Many of the most widespread Hindu and Buddhist mantras are in origin invocations of deities, e.g. Gayatri Mantra dedicated to Savitr, Pavamana Mantra to Soma Pavamana, and many of the Buddhist Dhāraṇī originate as recitations of lists of names or attributes of deities. Most of the shorter Buddhist mantras originate as the invocation of the name of a specific deity or bodhisattva, such as Om mani padme hum being in origin the invocation of a bodhisattva called Maṇipadma. However, from an early time these mantras were interpreted in the context of mystical sound symbolism. The most extreme example of this is the om syllable, which as early as in the Aitareya Brahmana was claimed as equivalent to the entire Vedas (collection of ritual hymns).^[117]

Buddhism[edit]

In the earliest Buddhist tradition, the Theravada, and in the later Mahayana tradition of Zen (or Chán), prayer plays only an ancillary role. It is largely a ritual expression of wishes for success in the practice and in helping all beings.^{[118][need quotation to verify]}

The skillful means (Sanskrit: upāya) of the transfer of merit (Sanskrit: pariṇāmanā) is an evocation and prayer. Moreover, indeterminate buddhas are available for intercession as they reside in awoken-fields (Sanskrit: buddha-kshetra).

The nirmānakāya of an awoken-field is what is generally known and understood as a mandala. The opening and closing of the ring (Sanskrit: maṇḍala) is an active prayer. An active prayer is a mindful activity, an activity in which mindfulness is not just cultivated but is.^[119] A common prayer is «May the merit of my practice, adorn Buddhas’ Pure Lands, requite the fourfold kindness from above, and relieve the suffering of the three life-journeys below. Universally wishing sentient beings, Friends, foes, and karmic creditors, all to activate the Bodhi mind, and all to be reborn in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.» (願以此功德 莊嚴佛淨土 上報四重恩 下濟三途苦 普願諸眾生 冤親諸債主 悉發菩提心 同生極樂國)^[120]

The Generation Stage (Sanskrit: utpatti-krama) of Vajrayana involves prayer elements.^[121]

The Tibetan Buddhism tradition emphasizes an instructive and devotional relationship to a guru; this may involve devotional practices known as guru yoga which are congruent with prayer. It also appears that Tibetan Buddhism posits the existence of various deities, but the peak view of the tradition is that the deities or yidam are no more existent or real than the continuity (Sanskrit: santana; refer mindstream) of the practitioner, environment and activity. But how practitioners engage yidam or tutelary deities will depend upon the level or more appropriately yana at which they are practicing. At one level, one may pray to a deity for protection or assistance, taking a more subordinate role. At another level, one may invoke the deity, on a more equal footing. And at a higher level one may deliberately cultivate the idea that one has become the deity, whilst remaining aware that its ultimate nature is śūnyatā. The views of the more esoteric yana are impenetrable for those without direct experience and empowerment.

Pure Land Buddhism emphasizes the recitation by devotees of prayer-like mantras, a practice often called Nembutsu.^[122]: 190 On one level it is said that reciting these mantras can ensure rebirth into a Sambhogakāya land (Sanskrit: buddha-kshetra) after bodily dissolution, a sheer ball spontaneously co-emergent to a buddha’s enlightened intention. According to Shinran, the founder of the Pure Land Buddhism tradition that is most prevalent in the US,^{[122]: 193 [123]} «for the long haul nothing is as efficacious as the Nembutsu.»^{[122]: 197 [124]} On another, the practice is a form of meditation aimed at achieving realization.^[125]

But beyond all these practices the Buddha emphasized the primacy of individual practice and experience. He said that supplication to gods or deities was not necessary. Nevertheless, today many lay people in East Asian countries pray to the Buddha in ways that resemble Western prayer—asking for intervention and offering devotion.

Hinduism[edit]

Hinduism has incorporated many kinds of prayer (Sanskrit: prārthanā), from fire-based rituals to philosophical musings. While chanting involves ‘by dictum’ recitation of timeless verses or verses with timings and notations, dhyanam involves deep meditation (however short or long) on the preferred deity/God. Again the object to which prayers are offered could be a persons referred as devtas, trinity or incarnation of either devtas or trinity or simply plain formless meditation as practiced by the ancient sages. These prayers can be directed to fulfilling personal needs or deep spiritual enlightenment, and also for the benefit of others. Ritual invocation was part and parcel of the Vedic religion and as such permeated their sacred texts. Indeed, the highest sacred texts of the Hindus, the Vedas, are a large collection of mantras and prayer rituals. Classical Hinduism came to focus on extolling a single supreme force, Brahman, that is made manifest in several lower forms as the familiar gods of the Hindu pantheon^{[dubious – discuss]}. Hindus in India have numerous devotional movements. Hindus may pray to the highest absolute God Brahman, or more commonly to its three manifestations, a creator god called Brahma, a preserver god called Vishnu and a destroyer god (so that the creation cycle can start afresh) Shiva, and at the next level to Vishnu’s avatars (earthly appearances) Rama and Krishna or to many other male or female deities. Typically, Hindus pray with their hands (the palms) joined in pranam.^[126] The hand gesture is similar to the popular Indian greeting namaste.

Sikhism[edit]

The Ardās (Punjabi: ਅਰਦਾਸ) is a Sikh prayer that is done before performing or after undertaking any significant task; after reciting the daily Banis (prayers); or completion of a service like the Paath (scripture reading/recitation), kirtan (hymn-singing) program or any other religious program. In Sikhism, these prayers are also said before and after eating. The prayer is a plea to God to support and help the devotee with whatever he or she is about to undertake or has done.

The Ardas is usually always done standing up with folded hands. The beginning of the Ardas is strictly set by the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh. When it comes to conclusion of this prayer, the devotee uses words like «Waheguru please bless me in the task that I am about to undertake» when starting a new task or «Akal Purakh, having completed the hymn-singing, we ask for your continued blessings so that we can continue with your memory and remember you at all times», etc. The word «Ardās» is derived from Persian word ‘Arazdashat’, meaning a request, supplication, prayer, petition or an address to a superior authority.

Ardās is a unique prayer based on the fact that it is one of the few well-known prayers in the Sikh religion that was not written in its entirety by the Gurus. The Ardās cannot be found within the pages of the Guru Granth Sahib because it is a continually changing devotional text that has evolved over time in order for it to encompass the feats, accomplishments, and feelings of all generations of Sikhs within its lines. Taking the various derivation of the word Ardās into account, the basic purpose of this prayer is an appeal to Waheguru for his protection and care, as well as being a plea for the welfare and prosperity of all mankind, and a means for the Sikhs to thank Waheguru for all that he has done.^[127][128]

Iranian religions[edit]

Zoroastrianism[edit]

Zoroastrians are not fire-worshippers, as some Westerners wrongly believe. Zoroastrians believe that the elements are pure and that fire represents God’s light or wisdom.^[129] Zoroastrian worship practices have evolved from ancient times to the present day. Over time, Zoroastrians developed the concept of worshipping in temples, sometimes called fire temples.^[130]

New religious movements[edit]

Wiccan prayers can include meditation, rituals and incantations. Wiccans see prayers as a form of communication with the God and Goddess. Such communication may include prayers for esbat and sabbat celebrations, for dinner, for pre-dawn times or for one’s own or others’ safety, for healing or for the dead.^[131]

In Raëlism rites and practises vary from initiation ceremonies to sensual meditation. An initiation ceremony usually involves a Raelian putting water on the forehead of a new member. Such ceremonies take place on certain special days on the Raelian calendar.^[132] Sensual meditation techniques include breathing exercises and various forms of erotic meditation.^[133]

In Eckankar, one of the basic forms of prayer includes singing the word «HU» (pronounced as «hue»), a holy name of God. ECKists may do this with eyes closed or open, aloud or silently. Practitioners may experience the divine ECK or Holy Spirit.^[134]

Practitioners of theurgy and Western esotericism may practice a form of ritual which uses both pre-sanctioned prayers and names of God, and prayers «from the heart» that, when combined, allow the participant to ascend spiritually, and in some instances, induce a trance in which God or other spiritual beings may be realized. Very much as in Hermetic Qabalah and orthodox Kabbalah, it is believed that prayer can influence both the physical and non-physical worlds. The use of ritualistic signs and names are believed to be archetypes in which the subconscious may take form as the Inner God, or another spiritual being, and the «prayer from the heart» to be that spiritual force speaking through the participant.

In Thelema (which includes both theist as well as atheist practitioners) adherents share a number of practices that are forms of individual prayer, including basic yoga; (asana and pranayama); various forms of ritual magick; rituals of one’s own devising (often based upon a syncretism of religions, or Western Esotericism, such as the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and Star Ruby); and performance of Liber Resh vel Helios (aka Liber 200), which consists of four daily adorations to the sun (often consisting of four hand/body positions and recitation of a memorized song, normally spoken, addressing different godforms identified with the sun).^[135]

While no dogma within Thelema expresses the purpose behind any individual aspirant who chooses to perform «Resh», note that the practice of «Resh» is not a simple petition toward the sun, nor a form of «worshiping» the celestial body that we call the Sun, but instead uses the positioning of that source of light, which enables life on our planet, as well as using mythological images of that solar force, so that the individual can perform the prayer, possibly furthering a self-identification with the sun, so «that repeated application of the Liber Resh adorations expands the consciousness of the individual by compelling him to take a different perspective, by inducing him to ‘look at things from the point of view of the Sun’ […]».^[136]

Prayer healing[edit]

Prayer is often used as a means of faith healing in an attempt to use religious or spiritual means to prevent illness, cure disease, or improve health.

Scientific studies regarding the use of prayer have mostly concentrated on its effect on the healing of sick or injured people. Meta-studies have been performed showing evidence only for no effect or a potentially small effect. For instance, a 2006 meta analysis on 14 studies concluded that there is «no discernable effect» while a 2007 systemic review of studies on intercessory prayer reported inconclusive results, noting that seven of 17 studies had «small, but significant, effect sizes» but the review noted that the most methodologically rigorous studies failed to produce significant findings.^[137][138] Some studies have indicated increased medical complications in groups receiving prayer over those without.^[139][140]

The efficacy of petition in prayer for physical healing to a deity has been evaluated in numerous other studies, with contradictory results.^{[141][142][143][144]} There has been some criticism of the way the studies were conducted.^[140][145]

Some attempt to heal by prayer, mental practices, spiritual insights, or other techniques, claiming they can summon divine or supernatural intervention on behalf of the ill. Others advocate that ill people may achieve healing through prayer performed by themselves.^[146] According to the varied beliefs of those who practice it, faith healing may be said to afford gradual relief from pain^[147] or sickness or to bring about a sudden «miracle cure», and it may be used in place of, or in tandem with, conventional medical techniques for alleviating or curing diseases. Faith healing has been criticized on the grounds that those who use it may delay seeking potentially curative conventional medical care. This is particularly problematic when parents use faith healing techniques on children.

Efficacy of prayer healing[edit]

In 1872, Francis Galton conducted a famous statistical experiment to determine whether prayer had a physical effect on the external environment. Galton hypothesized that if prayer was effective, members of the British Royal family would live longer, given that thousands prayed for their wellbeing every Sunday. He therefore compared longevity in the British Royal family with that of the general population, and found no difference.^[141] While the experiment was probably intended to satirize, and suffered from a number of confounders, it set the precedent for a number of different studies, the results of which are contradictory.

Two studies claimed that patients who are being prayed for recover more quickly or more frequently although critics have claimed that the methodology of such studies are flawed, and the perceived effect disappears when controls are tightened.^[148] One such study, with a double-blind design and about 500 subjects per group, was published in 1988; it suggested that intercessory prayer by born again Christians had a statistically significant positive effect on a coronary care unit population.^[142] Critics contend that there were severe methodological problems with this study.^[145] Another such study was reported by Harris et al.^[143] Critics also claim that the 1988 study was not fully double-blinded, and that in the Harris study, patients actually had a longer hospital stay in the prayer group, if one discounts the patients in both groups who left before prayers began,^[149] although the Harris study did demonstrate the prayed for patients on average received lower course scores (indicating better recovery).

One of the largest randomized, blind clinical trials was a remote retroactive intercessory prayer study conducted in Israel by Leibovici. This study used 3393 patient records from 1990 to 1996, and blindly assigned some of these to an intercessory prayer group. The prayer group had shorter hospital stays and duration of fever.^[150]

Several studies of prayer effectiveness have yielded null results.^[144] A 2001 double-blind study of the Mayo Clinic found no significant difference in the recovery rates between people who were (unbeknownst to them) assigned to a group that prayed for them and those who were not.^[151] Similarly, the MANTRA study conducted by Duke University found no differences in outcome of cardiac procedures as a result of prayer.^[152] In another similar study published in the American Heart Journal in 2006,^[140] Christian intercessory prayer when reading a scripted prayer was found to have no effect on the recovery of heart surgery patients; however, the study found patients who had knowledge of receiving prayer had slightly higher instances of complications than those who did not know if they were being prayed for or those who did not receive prayer.^[139][140] Another 2006 study suggested that prayer actually had a significant negative effect on the recovery of cardiac bypass patients, resulting in more frequent deaths and slower recovery time for those patient who received prayers.^[140]

Many believe that prayer can aid in recovery, not due to divine influence but due to psychological and physical benefits. It has also been suggested that if a person knows that he or she is being prayed for it can be uplifting and increase morale, thus aiding recovery. (See Subject-expectancy effect.) Many studies have suggested that prayer can reduce physical stress, regardless of the god or gods a person prays to, and this may be true for many worldly reasons. According to a study by Centra State Hospital, «the psychological benefits of prayer may help reduce stress and anxiety, promote a more positive outlook, and strengthen the will to live.»^[153] Other practices such as yoga, t’ai chi, and meditation may also have a positive impact on physical and psychological health.
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Others feel that the concept of conducting prayer experiments reflects a misunderstanding of the purpose of prayer. The previously mentioned study published in the American Heart Journal indicated that some of the intercessors who took part in it complained about the scripted nature of the prayers that were imposed to them,^[140] saying that this is not the way they usually conduct prayer:

Prior to the start of this study, intercessors reported that they usually receive information about the patient’s age, gender and progress reports on their medical condition; converse with family members or the patient (not by fax from a third party); use individualized prayers of their own choosing; and pray for a variable time period based on patient or family request.

One scientific movement attempts to track the physical effects of prayer through neuroscience. Leaders in this movement include Andrew Newberg, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In Newberg’s brain scans, monks, priests, nuns, sisters and gurus alike have exceptionally focused attention and compassion sites. This is a result of the frontal lobe of the brain’s engagement (Newberg, 2009). Newburg believes that anybody can connect to the supernatural with practice. Those without religious affiliations benefit from the connection to the metaphysical as well. Newberg also states that further evidence towards humans’ need for metaphysical relationships is that as science had increased spirituality has not decreased. Newburg believes that at the end of the 18th century, when the scientific method began to consume^{[page needed]} the human mind, religion could have vanished. However, two hundred years later, the perception of spirituality, in many instances, appears to be gaining in strength (2009). Newberg’s research also provides the connection between prayer and meditation and health. By understanding how the brain works during religious experiences and practices Newberg’s research shows that the brain changes during these practices allowing an understanding of how religion affects psychological and physical health (2009). For example, brain activity during meditation indicates that people who frequently practice prayer or meditation experience lower blood-pressure, lower heart rates, decreased anxiety, and decreased depression.^[154]

Another paradigm of research returns to the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (1979-2007) which has provided an explanatory model for mind-matter interactions. Jahn and his colleagues explain the local and nonlocal effects of consciousness by an explanation of the normal pathways, through those intentions life prayer, can change the praying person’s emotion and behavior, and anomalous pathways which can affect another one through the unconscious-implicit order trajectory via quantum nonlocality mechanism.^[155]

Efficacy of prayer for fertility[edit]

One study found that prayer combined with IVF treatment nearly doubled the number of women who were successfully pregnant, and more than doubled the number of successful implantations.^[156] But three years later it was revealed that the results of the study were fake.^[157]

Prevalence of prayer for health[edit]

Some modalities of alternative medicine employ prayer. A survey released in May 2004^[158] by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health in the United States, found that in 2002, 43% of Americans pray for their own health, 24% pray for others’ health, and 10% participate in a prayer group for their own health.

See also[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Bellarmine, Robert (1902). «Eleventh Sunday: The Necessity and Proper Method of Prayer» . Sermons from the Latins. Benziger Brothers.
• Bellarmine, Robert (1847). «The Seventh Precept, Which Is on Prayer.» . The Art of Dying Well. Translated by John Dalton. Richardson and Son.
• Deharbe, Joseph (1912). «Chapter. III. Prayer» . A Complete Catechism of the Catholic Religion. Translated by Rev. John Fander. Schwartz, Kirwin & Fauss.
• Horstius, Jacob Merlo (1877). «Colloquy between Christ and Man on the right use of Prayer» . The paradise of the Christian soul. London: Burns & Oates.
• Liguori, Alphonsus (1868). «Chapter XXX: Of Prayer» . Preparation for Death. Rivingtons.
• Wynne, John Joseph (1911). «Prayer» . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• «Part 4: On Prayer» . The catechism of the Council of Trent. Translated by James Donovan. Lucas Brothers. 1829.

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Prayer is a treasured privilege and mainstay for those who belong to God through the saving work of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The gift of communing with our Creator—child to Father—is the anchor and cornerstone of our life’s journey. For the unbeliever, a prayer cry to know and have a relationship with the Living God is precious and sacred. Repentance and acknowledgment of Christ as Lord leads to walking in joy and fellowship with the One who made us (Romans 10:9-10).

So, what is prayer, and what does communing with God look like in our daily lives?

How Does the Bible Define Prayer? 

The Bible provides myriad examples of prayer and how to pray. These examples show ordinary men and women laying their hearts before God, seeking Him in humility and praise. The following are several prayers we can ponder today.

The apostle Paul exhorted his readers to “not be anxious but pray about everything” (Philippians 4:6). He also prayed that unbelievers would come to a saving knowledge of Christ (Romans 10:1).

In fierce opposition, Peter and John prayed for courage to share the Gospel (Acts 4:29) and that God would perform wonders to glorify His Name (Acts 4:30).

The early church prayed over each other for healing (James 5:14-15) and the release of those in prison (Acts 12:5). They asked God for wisdom and discernment to carry out their work for the Lord (James 1:5, Philippians 1:9-10).

They prayed to know the will of the God they served (Colossians 1:9) and for the ability to grasp the depth of their Savior’s love (Ephesians 3:17-19).

Mary prayed in awe and wondered over the news that she bear the Son of God The beauty and humility of her opening words still bring joy to our hearts today. “And Mary said: ‘My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant’” (Luke 1:46-48).

The last prayer of the Bible is short but filled with power and anticipation. The apostle John, confined to the Island of Patmos, penned these brief but hope-filled words. “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

Why Do We Pray?

We pray to align our hearts with God and to seek His guidance in the moments of our days. We find wonderful examples of this in scripture—from Abraham to David to the prophets—but one of the most powerful examples is in King Hezekiah’s life.

King Hezekiah, a God-fearing King, ruled the Southern Kingdom of Judah after the horrific reign of King Ahaz. A tribute to Hezekiah’s depth of character is found in 2 Kings 18:5. “Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. No one was like him among all the kings of Judah, either before or after him.”

After the evil of Ahaz, Hezekiah was a tremendous blessing to the people of Judah. He moved to destroy idol worship, removed the high places that distracted the people from Jerusalem, and even broke the bronze snake of Moses’ day because the people burned incense in its honor (2 Kings 18:3-4).

However, amid the good he was doing, Hezekiah was under intense scrutiny and pressure from the evil leader of Assyria, Sennacherib. The Assyrian King repeatedly sent delegations to mock and taunt the nation of Judah, telling the people not to be comforted or fooled by their leader, Hezekiah, because the destruction of their nation was assured. The mighty Assyrians had conquered every other nation around them—why not Judah (2 Kings 18:31-35)?

At one point, as the Assyrian delegation mocked Hezekiah’s commitment to God, they left their threats in a letter. The significance of Hezekiah’s response to this evil threat is life-changing. “Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD” (2 Kings 19:14).

As Christ-followers who long to seek God’s heart in all things, we mustn’t miss the magnitude of King Hezekiah’s actions. He took the letter—filled with terrifying details of certain destruction—and spread it out before the Lord.

Scripture doesn’t say this good king reread the letter and agonized over every word. He didn’t call endless meetings with his officials to discuss the horrifying details.

He read the letter. He went to the temple of God and placed the letter before the Source of all hope and deliverance. God heard his prayer, and the Kingdom of Judah was spared from the attack of the Assyrians (2 Kings 19:20-34).

Oh, how I love that God moved through the writers of scripture to record this hope-filled story for us today. And what a powerful, visual example of taking our fears and anxiety to our Heavenly Father.

We will face our own “Assyrian Army” on this earthly journey. This may include sickness, grief, job loss, heartache, betrayal, etc. But we can take it all to the One Who created us and knows us to our very depths.

(Read King Hezekiah’s amazing prayer in 2 Kings 19:15-19.)

How Is Prayer Different from Meditation?

As followers of Jesus, we are called to devote time to prayer and meditation over His Word. Reading the inspired Word of God and praying as we read is a treasured gift from our Creator. God promises peace to those who keep their minds on Him (Isaiah 26:3). Oh, to linger in quiet moments with Him!

But there is a type of meditation in our unbelieving world that we should avoid because of its emptiness and potential dangers. Any practice that directs us to clear or empty our minds is suspect because we are called to fill our hearts and minds with God’s promises and precepts (Psalms 1:2).

If our minds are “emptied,” as the world suggests, there is a potential danger for the intake and acceptance of thoughts and philosophies contrary to God’s Word.

Additional verses about godly prayer and meditation include Philippians 4:8, Psalm 19:14, Psalm 63:6, Psalm 104:34, and Psalm 119:15.

How Does Jesus Say We Should Pray?

We learn vital aspects of prayer by following Jesus’ example in His years of ministry on this earth. From scripture, we know that Jesus prayed alone (Luke 5:16), He prayed with others (Luke 9:28), and He prayed for others (Matthew 19:30).

In Jesus’ earliest teachings on prayer, He begins by urging His disciples to pray with humility, not to be seen and admired. Matthew 6:5 reads, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.”

And in Matthew 6:7, Jesus focused on praying with humble simplicity, not with endless words and phrases.

From there, He moves to the beloved model of prayer still recited around the world today, what we call, The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13). What a moment this must have been for Jesus’ disciples. To learn about prayer from the Author of their faith! 

In John 17, knowing His time of death was near, Jesus went to His Father in prayer. He prayed that the Father would be glorified through what was to come (John 17:1-5). He prayed for His disciples, that they would be protected and sanctified (John 17:6-18). And then, in a breathtaking moment of love and compassion, Jesus prayed for us.

John 17:20-21 reads, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” 

And in the Garden of Gethsemane, before laying down His life for the redemption of sinners, Jesus lay His deepening sorrow before the Father. Three times He asked that, if possible, the path before Him could be changed (Matthew 26:39-44). But ultimately, for the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2), He surrendered to the will of God. “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (Matthew 26:42). 

Even on the cross, Jesus prayed. He cried out to His Father seeking forgiveness for His persecutors (Luke 23:34), to express agony over the temporary separation from His Father (Matthew 27:46), and to breathe His last words as He laid down His life for us all (Luke 23:46).

What is prayer? Prayer is a priceless gift from a loving Father to His children. What a joy to walk each moment in close, sacred fellowship with our Creator.

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3).

If you enjoyed this article on prayer, you may enjoy this perspective by Dr. Jack Graham:

If God is All-Knowing, Why Do We Pray?

«Prayer is communication with God. It is not only talking to God, but it is listening to God. And we are to pray, first and foremost, because we are commanded to pray. It is an act of obedience. I may not always understand the process of prayer or the behind-the-scenes work of prayer, but God wants me to depend upon him and to ask him for those things that are needed most in life. Yes, God is going to give us good things. He’s going to provide for us. But it’s clear in scripture that we have not because we ask not. And they’re just too many scriptures that tell us that we’re to pray. And if we don’t pray, we limit what God will choose to do in our lives. It is the process.

I read a book years ago called The Cycle of Prayer, which indicates that the prayer that starts in heaven is the prayer that gets to heaven. And that simply means that there’s a need that God wants to fulfill, a desire in the heart of God, that by the Holy Spirit he sends it down to my heart as I am sensitive, as I am listening, as I’m reading God’s word. God puts a desire in my heart. God allows a need in my life. And what I do in prayer is simply close the cycle. I close the circle by taking what God has placed in my heart and sending it back to him.

And every time God answers prayer, it strengthens our faith. Every time we get an answer and God delivers in his own way, in his own time, we develop as disciples in Christ. So of all the things Jesus taught, he was a great preacher and communicator, obviously, but when the disciples came to him, they didn’t say, ‘Lord, teach us to preach.’ They said, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’ There was something about the prayer life of Jesus that was so powerful, so persuasive that these men wanted to know how do we pray like that. And so getting in touch with God, knowing God, growing in our faith, getting the things that we need, all of this comes from the hand of God. I believe in prayer, and not just the idea of prayer, but I believe God really answers prayer.» — Dr. Jack Graham, PowerPoint Ministries

Further Reading: 

Learning to Pray… Again

Pray Like This: Hallowed Be Your Name

Do You Pray?

What Should We Pray For?

Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/undefined undefined

Leigh Ann Thomas is passionate about encouraging others to seek God’s best. She has penned four books, including Smack-Dab in the Midlife Zone—Inspiration for Women in the Middle, and Ribbons, Lace, and Moments of Grace—Inspiration for the Mother of the Bride. 

You’ll find Leigh Ann on an adventure with her sweetheart of 39 years, getting silly with her grands, or daydreaming story plots on the front porch. 

Connect on LeighAThomas.com.

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This article is part of our Christian Terms catalog, exploring words and phrases of Christian theology and history. Here are some of our most popular articles covering Christian terms to help your journey of knowledge and faith:

The Full Armor of God
The Meaning of «Selah»
What is a «Concubine»?
Christian Meaning of Humility
What Is Grace? Bible Definition and Christian Quotes

Who are Gentiles? Biblical Meaning
What is Fornication?
Meaning of Shekinah Glory
What is Discernment? Bible Meaning and Importance
What Is Prophecy? Bible Meaning and Examples

What does the Bible say about prayer? How can scripture encourage and guide our prayers to God?

Prayer is both marvelous and mysterious. The idea of communicating with the Creator of the universe seems almost ludicrous. And certainly presumptuous. Not to mention intimidating.  Thankfully, the Bible gives us insight into the hows and whys of prayer.

Why would God want to talk with us? Is there a right and wrong way to pray? Why does God answer some prayers but not others? Does it matter that we only have a little faith We can find the answers to our questions about prayer in Scripture! Since God invites us to talk with him, it’s no surprise he gives us guidelines. I’ve compiled a list of what I consider the ten most important verses on prayer.

Top 10 Bible Verses about Prayer

God is listening and ready to answer your prayers. May these Bible quotes about prayer strengthen your faith and deeper your relationship with your Lord and Creator.  

1. Luke 18:13-14: “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

These verses, from the well-known story of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple, reveals the prayer that allows us to enter into a relationship with God: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” The tax collector was honest with God about his sin. He humbled himself, repented, and acknowledged his need for God’s mercy. God answered his prayer and saved him.

Bottom line—the first step in developing a prayer life is calling upon God for salvation. 

2. Psalm 66:18: “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”

This verse from David’s psalm shows us a major hindrance to God’s willingness to hear our prayers—unconfessed sin. Some might ask, “If sin prevents God from hearing our prayers, then none of us have a chance, because of we all sin, even after we’re saved.” 

A careful reading of Psalm 66:18, however, draws our attention to the word “cherished.” “If I had cherished sin…” To cherish sin means to embrace it. To love it, hold on to it, and refuse to give it up. This is vastly different from committing a sin that we regret, confess, and forsake as soon as the Holy Spirit brings it to our attention. God doesn’t expect us to be sinless, but he does call us to deal with our sin as soon as possible (1 John 1:9).

Bottom line—we can’t live a consistently sinful lifestyle and expect God to hear our prayers.

3. Psalm 34:15: “The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry.”

If we have a right relationship with God and are earnestly seeking to follow and honor him with our lives, we never have to wonder if he’s listening to our prayers. On the contrary, this verse assures us that he is carefully attuned to our lives and eager to hear every prayer that comes from our lips. 

Bottom line—God hears the prayers of those who put their trust in him.

4. Daniel 9:18: “We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.”

This beautiful excerpt from Daniel’s prayer on behalf of the Jews exiled in Babylon shows us a profound truth about prayer—that God answers our prayers because of his mercy, not our good works. Many believers think their good works obligate or persuade God to act on their behalf. And while God does call us to live holy lives, it is not our obedience that moves God to answer our prayers, it is his great mercy toward us. 

Bottom line—God’s mercy, not our goodness, is the basis for answered prayers.

5. Psalm 5:3: “In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”

The psalmist who penned Psalm 5:3 models the attitude we should have when we pray—that of eager expectation. We should believe God will answer our prayers and diligently watch for his hand at work. The psalmist also shows us that when we pray early in the day, we have the rest of the day to anticipate God’s answer.

Bottom line—when we pray, we can wait in eager anticipation for God to work on our behalf.

6. 1 John 5:14: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” 

God delights in answering prayers that align with his will. But how do we know what God’s will is? The most reliable way to know is by reading his Word. As we seek God through Bible reading and prayer, we get to know his heart and gain wisdom and spiritual insight. This gives us a greater understanding of how to pray according to his will, and a greater chance of having our prayers answered.

Bottom line—God answers every prayer that aligns with his will.

7. James 4:3: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

This verse from the book of James tells us why God says “No” to many of our prayers—they are selfish, self-centered, and sometimes downright bad for us. Because God is wise and loving, like any good parent, he will not give things that will harm us or others.

Bottom line—God will say no to our prayers if we ask for something for the wrong reason or for the wrong purpose.

8. Matthew 26:42: “He (Jesus) went away a second time and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.’»

Jesus set the supreme example of surrender and submission to the Father’s will when he prayed for God to spare him from dying on the cross. Because he was fully human, he was fearful and reluctant to experience the agony of the crucifixion. Because he was fully God, he could have refused to die, but instead, in humble trust and submission, he prayed, “may your will be done.” 

On the surface, death by crucifixion seemed to end Christ’s ministry. In reality, his death on the cross paved the way for countless believers to receive eternal life by believing in his death and resurrection. 

Bottom line—we can surrender our will to God’s in complete confidence that he knows what’s best.

9. Mark 9:24: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

This honest confession comes from a man whose son was demon-possessed. He wasn’t fully convinced Jesus had the power to deliver his son, but he asked anyway.

This passage debunks two of the greatest misconceptions about prayer—that if we have enough faith, God will answer our prayers, and if we don’t, he won’t. Scripture doesn’t support the idea that great faith produces great miracles and small faith prevents them. Instead, God tells us to ask in faith, believing that he can and will answer our prayers in the way he knows is best. Even frightened, tiny, mustard-seed faith like this father had can and does move the hand of God.  

Bottom line—it’s not how much faith we have that matters, but who we have faith in.

10. James 5:16: “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

What a beautiful affirmation James, the half-brother of Jesus, gives in this short verse. When we wonder if prayer accomplishes anything, he encourages us—not only is prayer powerful, but it’s effective. “You’re not wasting your time,” he seems to call to us. “Keep praying! God is using your prayers to accomplish his will.”

Bottom line: The prayers of godly Christians work.

I don’t know why God uses the prayers of his people to accomplish his work in the world, but I’m glad he does. I’m humbled to think we can talk to him at any time of the day or night. I’m grateful that he’s never too busy to hear our prayers and act on our behalf. 

My prayer for us all is that we will never take for granted the privilege and the power of prayer.

Prayer in the Bible: The Lord’s Prayer

In Matthew 6, Jesus gives clear instruction and guidance on how to pray, saying «And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. «And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.» (Matthew 6:5-8)

He then proclaims what is known as the «Lord’s Prayer» which is popularly used across most Christian denominations to this day!

«Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.« ~ Matthew 6:9-13

20 More Bible Verses about Prayer

Philippians 4:6 — Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Mark 11:24 — Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

John 15:7 — If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 — Pray without ceasing

Matthew 26:41 — Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Ephesians 6:18 — Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

1 Timothy 2:5 — For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Colossians 4:2 — Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

Psalm 34:17  — When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.

Luke 18:1 — And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

Jeremiah 29:12 — Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.

Matthew 6:6 — But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Romans 8:26 — Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Matthew 6:7 — “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

James 5:16 — Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Luke 11:9 — And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Jeremiah 33:3 — Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

2 Chronicles 7:14 — If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Matthew 21:22 — And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.

1 Timothy 2:8  — I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling;

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Lori Hatcher is a blogger, inspirational speaker, and author of the Christian Small Publisher’s 2016 Book of the Year, Hungry for God … Starving for Time, Five-Minute Devotions for Busy Women. A Toastmasters International contest-winning speaker, Lori’s goal is to help busy women connect with God in the craziness of everyday life. She especially loves small children, soft animals, and chocolate. You’ll find her pondering the marvelous and the mundane on her blog, Hungry for God. . . Starving for Time. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter (@lorihatcher2), or Pinterest (Hungry for God).

Is prayer really all that important?

There’s no shortage of resources debating the effectiveness and purpose of prayer, whether it has current application in Christian life or whether it falls on deaf ears. Some people say prayer should be a conversation and others say it’s a one-sided petition and anything you “hear back” is just a voice in your head.

I’m not here to solve the crisis of prayer necessity, but to share my own personal experience with prayer—which is that the more I do it, the easier it becomes and the closer I feel to God. I’m one of those who has experienced the voice of God when I pray to Him, so much so that it does feel conversational. Moreso than being zapped with revelation, seeing mental pictures or having dreams, I’ve realized that an active prayer life is how God and I communicate most clearly with each other. When I take time to focus on praying without distraction or disruption, my heart and the holy spirit within me are primed to receive instruction, edification and guidance from Him.

To give some anecdotal evidence, I spent an entire month wrestling with a personal problem without lifting it up in prayer. I did a ton of things that normally help in these cases, yet it reaped no value. Finally, at the urging of several friends, I took a morning off from my usual routine and JUST sat in prayer about it. And within an hour, the floodgates opened and I felt the outpouring of God’s provision over the entire situation. 24 hours later, my entire perspective on life and the situation in particular had shifted! 

If you’re one who questions whether prayer has any place in the modern Christian life, I invite you to put aside all else and ask what it could hurt to devote yourself to prayer? The very worst that happens is you pour your heart out to God—and maybe you “hear” nothing back. But what if you do? What if a dedicated time of prayer is the last leap you need to cross a hurdle that’s been in your path far too long? What if the key to a stronger, more intimate fellowship with your Creator is the humbleness required of you to prioritize your prayer life?

What if prayer IS all that important? Why not make it a priority and see for yourself? 

What is Prayer?

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines prayer as “an address (such as a petition) to God or a god in word or thought.”

Prayer is one of the most important aspects of Christian living. It’s how we communicate with God and how we petition Him for help. It’s one of the ways we express our gratitude, love, confusion, despair, hope, and grief to our Heavenly Father. Prayer also has a powerful effect on the spiritual climate around us. When people pray against a spiritual attack, illness, or spiritual oppression over someone’s life, this is often called “intercessory prayer,” because prayer also allows us to intercede on the behalf of ourselves and others in situations beyond our mortal control. There are also methods of meditative/contemplative prayer, worshipful prayer, confessional prayer and more! 

The Bible tells us to pray often—without ceasing, in fact!—and to pray in different ways: alone and with others, aloud and silently, with words and in the spirit. Prayer is one thing that Christians from all walks of life and from every different denomination can do for one another. We shouldn’t be afraid to intercede on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Christ, no matter what, because God always hears our prayers—whether we speak eloquently or not. 

What Does the Bible Say About Prayer?

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 – Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 5:2 – Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

Hebrews 4:16 – Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

How Can I Become More Devoted to Prayer? 

Devoting ourselves to prayer is easier or harder in different phases of life. Learning to pray constantly is not something most people become good at overnight, either! This kind of prayer is really more of a “conversation” we hold with God throughout the day, where we bring our petitions, concerns, etc. to Him as they come up. Remember that prayer does not have to sound a certain way, or last a certain length, or include certain “key words” to make it work. God knows you and how YOU speak, and He wants to hear from you just as you are!

Here are some ways to help make prayer a habit:

1. Roll it into your daily life. One of the best ways I have found to make intercessory prayer a priority in my day is to follow prayer request hashtags or people who share/retweet prayer needs on social media. As I’m scrolling through Twitter or Instagram at the end of the day, I pause at every prayer request that crosses my feed and throw up a quick prayer for the person or situation in question. I have found that this makes me quicker to default to prayer when issues arise; it has also made me more mindful to pray throughout my day for things. Take a look at the things you do throughout the day and search for how they create opportunities to pray! 
2. Carve out time from your usual schedule to devote to focused prayer. This means shutting off your phone, turning off your music, putting your book aside, and concentrating on nothing but “the conversation”—i.e. being in the moment with God and Jesus, free from distractions.
3. Grab a prayer buddy. Find someone you can pray for and who will pray for you, and make sure you check in with each other throughout the day/week. Pray for each other out loud together when possible, and add their prayer needs to your dedicated prayer time each day.
4. Start a prayer board. Whether this is a note on your phone, a corkboard on your wall, a document in your office—whatever method works for you! Have prayer requests written down in one place where you can remember them, then pray through them frequently.
5. Join a prayer chain. Many different ministries have an email list you can join where prayer requests are mailed out, and pausing to pray for the requests as soon as they hit your inbox is great training toward making prayer a priority. (Did you know we have a prayer chain? Visit https://www.truthortradition.com/the-prayer-chain to join!) 
6. End the day with a prayer. Once you’re in bed, the distractions start to fade away. Take some time before bed to thank God for the day, lift up your cares to Him, and release all your burdens into His hands.

Prayer is a habit-forming practice; the more we do it, the more conscious we become to repeat it. Eventually, it becomes second-nature to start praying when something comes to our attention, we become bolder to approach God with our petitions, and we become stronger, more peaceful, and more courageous Christians because of it. 

Take Action!

Ask a friend, family member, coworker, etc. what you can pray for in their life. Make a conscious effort to lift the matter in prayer at least three times every day this week.

Do you spend time in prayer?  What a silly question.  If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you spend time in prayer.  Let me ask a more personal question.  What was the last specific prayer God answered in your life?  I don’t ask to judge you, but to sympathize with you.  For years it felt like my prayer hit the ceiling and bounced back without an answer.  Today I will share 65 Bible verses about prayer that will change your life as they changed mine.

If you are praying about something, it matters to you. You need God to move in your life, otherwise, you wouldn’t waste your time in prayer.  The problem is, if you don’t know what the Bible says about prayer, you won’t know how to pray powerfully, strategically, and effectively.

Knowing Bible verses about prayer can give you the tools you need for a powerful prayer life!

So today we will look deep into scripture and see the following:

• What the Bible said about prayer
• What did Jesus say about prayer
• How to use scriptures about prayer to supercharge your prayer life
• Examples of prayers that changed lives in the Bible

Knowing Bible verses about prayer can give you the tools you need for a powerful prayer life! Click To Tweet

What the Bible said about prayer?

Prayer is important to God and He expects His people to pray.  We see that this is what the Bible says about prayer.  Pray, pray harder, pray all the time, pray in faith, and so on.

“Even those I will bring to My holy mountain And make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.” (Isaiah 56:7 NASB)

The Lord Hears Prayer

What we need to know, first and foremost is that the Lord hears all your prayers.  It may not feel like it, but feelings lie!  Or to put it as my daddy put it.

Feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving!

Just do a keyword search in Biblegateway.com on prayer and praying.  There are 191 verses on prayer and 35 Bible verses about praying!  If God didn’t hear all your prayers, would he have given so many Bible verses on prayer and praying?

Mixed into those, over 200 scripture on prayer we see many types of prayer in the Bible.  The main point, however, is not how many types of prayer there are, but that God hears them all!

“The Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before Me;” (1 Kings 9:3 NASB)

“‘Thus says the Lord, “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you.” (2 Kings 20:5 NASB)

“And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.” (Revelation 8:4 NASB)

Related Post: 200+ Scripture About Prayer To Grow Your Faith

God Answers Prayers

Not only does God year your prayers, but God answers every prayer.  Now, we don’t always understand His answer, sometimes the answer is no, not yet, or a redirection, but He always answers.  Here are just a few scriptures on prayer to help us see that God answers prayers!

“or they cried out to God in the battle, and He answered their prayers because they trusted in Him.” (1 Chronicles 5:20 NASB)

“Blessed be God, Who has not turned away my prayer Nor His loving kindness from me.” (Psalm 66:20 NABS)

“while I was still speaking in prayer, then the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, came to me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering.” (Daniel 9:21 NASB)

“And fixing his gaze on him and being much alarmed, he said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God.” (Acts 10:4 NASB)

Bible verses about Prayer and Faith

The Bible also has a lot to say about having faith when you pray.  Pray while believing that God hears and answers and you will see great things happen.

“In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.” (John 16:23 NASB)

“rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,” (Romans 12:12 NASB)

One of my favorite prayer strategies is to write out some Bible verses on prayer, hang them in my kitchen to remind me to pray instead of complaining when life is hard!

Related: Hope When Life Is Hard and You Are Hard Pressed on Every Side

Verses About Prayer and Worship

Worship is a word we often misuse, implying that it only refers to the 30 minutes of music each Sunday.  In reality, worship is anything done to honor God.  Prayer is worship and there are many Bible verses about prayer and worship that prove the point.

“May my prayer be counted as incense before You; The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering.” (Psalm 141:2 NASB)

“The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, But the prayer of the upright is His delight.” (Proverbs 15:8 NASB)

“While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”” (Acts 13:2 NIV)

Related: To Be Still Praise God in Song When It’s Hard

What Did Jesus Say About Praying?

When there is a biblical topic, I love to know what Jesus said about it.  So let’s answer the question, “What did Jesus say about prayer?”  A lot.  Jesus said a lot about prayer!

Pray in secret

““Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1 NASB)

“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

“And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” (Matthew 6:6-8 NASB)

Keep Praying

I love this passage that says “ask and keep asking, seek and keep seeking, and knock and keep knocking!”  Remember that God answers prayer and keep praying!

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7 NASB)

Pray in faith

“And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” (Matthew 21:22 NASB)

Add fasting to prayer

Adding a time of fasting to your prayer life can bring power and spiritual breakthrough!  Learn how to fast and pray in a way that pleases God here.

“But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” (Matthew 17:21 NASB)

“Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” (Acts 13:3 NASB)

Hoping to go deeper in prayer in fasting?  Check out this new book on fasting and prayer on amazon.

Deal with Sin for Effective Prayer

One thing that strikes me as amazing about God, through the person of Jesus, is grace.  As believers, we are forgiven of our sins, but God loves us too much to allow us to continue to ruin our lives in sin.  It is the difference between being nice and being kind.

God is not nice.  Nice wants to make you feel better about your mess.

God is kind.  Kind wants you to grow so your mess changes into holiness.

Grace is kindness, loving us as we are but leading us to change!  That is a God who draws my heart in to pray more!

So it makes perfect sense that Bible verses about prayer repeatedly remind us to confess our sins, forgive others and walk in holiness.

““If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.” (Matthew 18:15 NASB)

Unity in Prayer is Powerful

Along with sin that hinders our prayers, is the idea that unity adds power to our prayers.  Here are 12 more Bible verses to pray for unity in the Church.

“Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” (Matthew 18:19-20 NASB)

Pray Fervently Bible Verses About Prayer

We’ve seen that God hears and answers prayers. Is it any wonder, that a God who is so relationally driven also wants us to pray often?  Prayer is having a conversation with God, growing that relationship with God.

God longs to have an intimate personal relationship with you.  That is why there are so many Bible verses about praying fervently!

“Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart,” (Luke 18:1 NASB)

“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42 NASB)

“Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me,” (Romans 15:30 NASB)

“Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;” (Colossians 4:2 NASB)

“Pray continually,” (1 Thessalonians 5:16 NASB)

Pray Boldly

Part of that beautiful, intimate relationship with God, comes the privilege to come to Him boldly with our prayers.  We have a unique position with God, as His children, that allows us to talk to Him about everything.  And as His, dearly loved children, He answers us, helps us, and comes to fight over us!

“Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.”  (Mark 11:24 NASB)

“This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” (1 John 5:14 NASB)

“But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.” (James 1:6 NASB)

“Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” (John 14:13 NASB)

“Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  (Hebrews 4:16 NASB)

What does the Bible say about long prayers?

Also, note that the Bible talks a few times about long prayers, prayed in public to impress people.  Prayer is a personal intimate conversation between you and God.  It was never intended to be used to lord spiritual maturity or self-righteousness over others!

“And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” (Matthew 23:14 NASB)

How to Use Scriptures to Supercharge Your Prayer Life

Now we know what the Bible says about prayer, what Jesus said about prayer, now let’s see how to get our own prayer life rocking.  Yes, your prayer life can be supercharged, powerful, and effective to change your life!  But how?  Learn how to become a strong prayer warrior here!  And please note that adding Bible verses about prayer is key.

Famous Prayers in the Bible

I love that God doesn’t just say pray, but He shows us how and lets us know what will happen when we do.

The Lords Prayer is a great example of famous prayers in the Bible!

“Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.

‘Give us this day our daily bread.
‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
‘And do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil.

[For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’]” (Matthew 6:9-13 NASB)

We see countless prayers in Daniel, but I want to point out that he gave his attention to seek God, regularly!

“So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.” (Daniel 9:3 NASB)

And then we see several examples where God answers the prayers!

“and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14 NASB)

Bible Verses About Praying for Others

It is also amazing to see Bible verses about praying for others.  I love taking them word for word and praying them over those in my circle!

“Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (1 Corinthians 7:5 NASB)

“I do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;” (Ephesians 1:16 NASB)

“With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,” (Ephesians 6:18 NASB)

“First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men,” (1 Timothy 2:1 NASB)

Scriptures to Use When Praying

Do you want God to answer your prayers with a, “Yes”?  Adding scriptures to your prayers is a powerful way to pray.  If what you are praying for is in the Bible, it is in God’s will.  If you pray according to God’s will, He will answer that prayer with a yes.

Praying Through the Armor of God

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:10-18 NASB)

A Prayer for the Nation

“First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying) as a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.” (1 Timothy 2:1-8 NASB)

The Prayer of the Righteous

“and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” (James 5:15-16 NASB)

Bible Verses about Growing in Faith

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,” (Ephesians 1:18-20 NASB)

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2 NASB)

Scripture to Remind God and Yourself of God’s Faithfulness

“Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.” (Jeremiah 29:12 NASB)

“Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.” (Psalm 4:1 NASB)

“The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.” (Psalm 145:18 NASB)

” ‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’”(Jeremiah 33:3 NASB)

Adding scripture to prayer is both powerful and strategic!

Related: Complete Guide To War Room Strategy And Effective Prayer

Praying Scriptures Examples

Jesus is the perfect example of a man who prayed scripture.  We can look at his prayers and see how they reflect passages from the Old Testament beautifully.

But don’t miss his example of how to pray, regularly, alone, and with faith.

“It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.” (Luke 6:12 NASB)

” But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.” (Luke 5:15-16 NASB)

See 10 of the Prayers of Jesus here for more on how to pray scripture.

Bible Verses About Praying During Hard Times

Have you seen the theme woven through these Bible verses on prayer? Prayer moves God.  When life is hard, when marriage is hard, when parenting is hard, prayer changes everything!

These are scriptures on prayer that I read over and over again to encourage myself.  If God heard and moved then, He can do it again!

“and after that God was moved by prayer for the land.” (2 Samuel 21:14 NASB)

“Thus the Lord was moved by prayer for the land, and the plague was held back from Israel.” (2 Samuel 24:25 NASB)

“He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.” (Hebrews 5:7 NASB)

Related: 3 Ways Hard Times in Marriage Are a Blessing

7 Prayers To Pray For Your Children

How To Be Still When Marriage is Hard

Prayer Moves Mountains

I don’t know what kind of hard situation you are facing in life today.  But please be encouraged to know that God never changes.  He is the same today as He was yesterday.  If you are reading this 10 years from now He will not have changed.  And God said we can move mountains.  How?  Through prayer and faith!

“And Jesus *answered saying to them, “Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him.

Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.”  (Mark 11:22-24 NASB)

The Holy Spirit Helps You Pray

When your circumstances are difficult you have help to pray.

• The job ended with no notice
• Your marriage is in ruins
• Your children are rebelling
• The friendship is rocky
• Your health is going downhill

None of that caught God off guard!  He is with you, cares for you, and longs to stand up over you in protection and defense.

“In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27 NASB)

Philippians 4 Bible Verses to Pray

There have been seasons of my life I literally prayed through Philippians 4 every day!  Anxiety would overwhelm me from all of the hard things and I needed comfort.  Philippians 4 is an amazing guide to find peace when life is hard!  Specifically these two.

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6 NASB)

” And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7 NASB)

Related: Apply Philippians 4:8 to Love God With All Your Mind

Examples of Prayers that Changed Lives in the Bible

There are soooo many prayers in scripture.  Prayers prayed in desperation.  Prayers prayed in thanks.  The most beautiful consistency in all of the prayers we see in the Bible, however, is that they changed lives.  Look at these and see how God showed up and showed off in the lives of His people.

The Prayer of Jabez

” 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 NASB)

The Prayer of Jonah

“and he said, “I called out of my distress to the Lord,
And He answered me.
I cried for help from the depth of Sheol;
You heard my voice.

“For You had cast me into the deep,
Into the heart of the seas,
And the current engulfed me.
All Your breakers and billows passed over me.

“So I said, ‘I have been expelled from Your sight.
Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’
“Water encompassed me to the point of death.
The great deep engulfed me,
Weeds were wrapped around my head.

“I descended to the roots of the mountains.
The earth with its bars was around me forever,
But You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.
“While I was fainting away,
I remembered the Lord,
And my prayer came to You,
Into Your holy temple.

“Those who regard vain idols
Forsake their faithfulness,
But I will sacrifice to You
With the voice of thanksgiving.
That which I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation is from the Lord.””
(Jonah 2:2-9 NASB)

Prayers of David

“O Lord, how my adversaries have increased!
Many are rising up against me.
Many are saying of my soul,
“There is no deliverance for him in God.” Selah.

But You, O Lord, are a shield about me,
My glory, and the One who lifts my head.
I was crying to the Lord with my voice,
And He answered me from His holy mountain. Selah.

I lay down and slept;
I awoke, for the Lord sustains me.
So I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people
Who have set themselves against me round about.

Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God!
For You have smitten all my enemies on the cheek;
You have shattered the teeth of the wicked.
Salvation belongs to the Lord;
Your blessing be upon Your people! Selah.”
(Psalm 3 NASB)

“To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in You I trust,
Do not let me be ashamed;
Do not let my enemies exult over me.
Make me know Your ways, O Lord;

Teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
For You I wait all the day.
Remember, O Lord, Your compassion and Your lovingkindness,
For they have been from of old.”
(Psalm 25, 1-2, 4-6 NASB)

A Sinning Saints Prayer

“Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from Your presence
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
And sustain me with a willing spirit.”
(Psalm 51:7, 10-12 NASB)

Two Prayers of Paul

” And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” (Philippians 1:9-11 NASB)

“For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,” (Ephesians 3:14-20 NASB)

The Prayer of Moses

“The Lord bless you, and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.’
(Numbers 6:24-26 NASB)

How Bible Verses About Prayer Can Change Your Life Today

What are the things you are bringing before the Lord today?  I imagine they are important needs and dreams in your life.  Have you seen how over and over again, God hears and answers the prayers of His people?

What will you do with these 65 Bible verses about prayer?  You can begin adding them to your prayer life to pray more powerful prayers.

Pick one of the scriptures that is already a prayer and swap out the pronouns to make it personal to your situation.

I also highly recommend you journal your prayers, at least as a list.  That way, when God answers, you can look back and see how He moved and give Him all the glory!

Related: Step By Step: How To Make A DIY Prayer Journal or War Binder

By adding scripture to your prayers, and meditating on scriptures about prayer you will grow in faith.  And we know that when you pray in faith and in accordance with His will, we have what you ask of God.

in HIM,

If you enjoyed this, you will love these posts:

•  Prayers for Marriages in Trouble: A War Room Prayer Strategy
• A Proverbs 31 Prayer
• 14 Promises of God You Can Pray to Overcome Fear

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Prayer is the act of attempting to communicate, commonly with a sequence of words, with a deity or spirit for the purpose of worshipping, requesting guidance, requesting assistance, confessing sins, as an act of reparation or to express one’s thoughts and emotions. The words of the prayer may take the form of intercession, a hymn, incantation or a spontaneous utterance in the person’s praying words. Secularly, the term can also be used in referring to «hope».

A[edit]

• If the one who offers prayer knew how much divine mercy is descending upon him, he would surely not raise his head from prostration.
  • Ali, Ghurar al-Hikam wa Durar al-Kalim (Exalted Aphorisms And Pearls Of Speech). p. 710. Translated by Tahir Ridha Jaffer. Ansariyan Publications — Qum (2012).

• Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.
  • Maya Angelou, Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer (2006)

B[edit]

• The most acceptable prayer is the one offered with the utmost spirituality and radiance; its prolongation hath not been and is not beloved by God. The more detached and the purer the prayer, the more acceptable is it in the presence of God.
  • Báb, Persian Bayán, VII, 19

• Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth.
  • Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene Elsewhere.

• Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers.
  • J. Sidlow Baxter, Reported in Charlie Jones, Bob Kelly, The Tremendous Power of Prayer (2000) p. 46.

• PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911).

• God shapes the world by prayer.
  • Edward McKendree Bounds Purpose in Prayer (1920), p. 9.

• Apostolic preaching cannot be carried on unless there be apostolic prayer.
  • Edward McKendree Bounds, The Weapon of Prayer.

• In prayerful sympathy and love. Hold to the old truth — double distilled.
  • Edward McKendree Bounds, Last card to Homer W. Hodge, dated 26 June 1913.

• God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers,
  And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face,
  A gauntlet with a gift in ‘t.
  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book II.

• Every wish
  Is like a prayer — with God.
  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book II.

• Hope, he called, belief
  In God, — work, worship * * * therefore let us pray!
  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book III.

• There are, O householder, five desirable, pleasant, and agreeable things which are rare in the world. What are those five? They are long life, beauty, happiness, fame and (rebirth in) a heaven. But of those five things, O householder, I do no teach that they are to be obtained by prayer or by vows.
  • Gautama Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya 5.43

• For a noble disciple, O householder, who wishes to have long life, it is not befitting that he should pray for long life or take delight in so doing. He should rather follow a path of life that is conducive to longevity.
  • Gautama Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya 5.43

• All my life I have prayed, and all my life I have been refused answer. I scarcely believed in the gods anymore, or if I did, it was only to curse them for their indifference. They betrayed my father, who had served Them loyally all his life. They betrayed my mother, or They were powerless to save her, which was as bad or worse. If a god has come to me, He certainly hasn’t come for me!
  • Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt (2005), Chapter 6

C[edit]

• When the mind is not dissipated upon extraneous things, nor diffused over the world about us through the senses, it withdraws within itself, and of its own accord ascends to the contemplation of God.
  • Basil of Caesarea, Letter to Gregory, Saint Basil: The Letters, R. Deferrari, trans. (1926), vol. 1, p. 15.

• We must resist wandering thoughts in prayer. Raising our hands reminds us that we need to raise up our minds to God, setting aside all irrelevant thoughts.
  • John Calvin, Book III Ch. 20 First Rule, para. 1 and 2.

• Some one will say, Does he not know without a monitor both what our difficulties are, and what is meet for our interest, so that it seems in some measure superfluous to solicit him by our prayers, as if he were winking, or even sleeping, until aroused by the sound of our voice? Those who argue thus attend not to the end for which the Lord taught us to pray. It was not so much for his sake as for ours. … It is very much for our interest to be constantly supplicating him; first, that our heart may always be inflamed with a serious and ardent desire of seeking, loving and serving him, while we accustom ourselves to have recourse to him as a sacred anchor in every necessity; secondly, that no desires, no longing whatever, of which we are ashamed to make him the witness, may enter our minds, while we learn to place all our wishes in his sight, and thus pour out our heart before him; and, lastly, that we may be prepared to receive all his benefits with true gratitude and thanksgiving, while our prayers remind us that they proceed from his hand.
  • John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 20, Section 3 (1536)

• Let the first rule of right prayer then be, to have our heart and mind framed as becomes those who are entering into converse with God. This we shall accomplish in regard to the mind, if, laying aside carnal thoughts and cares which might interfere with the direct and pure contemplation of God, it not only be wholly intent on prayer, but also, as far as possible, be borne and raised above itself. … When I say it must be raised above itself, I mean that it must not bring into the presence of God any of those things which our blind and stupid reason is wont to devise, nor keep itself confined within the little measure of its own vanity, but rise to a purity worthy of God.
  • John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 20, Section 4 (1536)

• The ceremony of lifting up our hands in prayer is designed to remind us that we are far removed from God, unless our thoughts rise upward.
  • John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 20, Section 5 (1536)

• Can we suppose anything more hateful or even more execrable to God than this fiction of asking the pardon of sins, while he who asks at the very time either thinks that he is not a sinner, or, at least, is not thinking that he is a sinner; in other words, a fiction by which God is plainly held in derision?
  • John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 20, Section 6 (1536)

• He who comes into the presence of God to pray must divest himself of all vainglorious thoughts, lay aside all idea of worth; in short, discard all self- confidence, humbly giving God the whole glory, lest by arrogating any thing, however little, to himself, vain pride cause him to turn away his face.
  • John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 20, Section 8 (1536)

• As our blessed Lord has required us to pray that his kingdom may come, and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, it becomes us not only to express our desires of that event by words, but to use every lawful method to spread the knowledge of his name. In order to this, it is necessary that we should become, in some measure acquainted with the religious state of the world; and as this is an object we should be prompted to pursue, not only by the gospel of our Redeemer, but even by the feelings of humanity, so an inclination to conscientious activity therein would form one of the strongest proofs that we are the subjects of grace, and partakers of that spirit of universal benevolence and genuine philanthropy, which appear so eminent in the character of God himself.
  • William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (1792), Introduction

• The most glorious works of grace that have ever took place, have been in answer to prayer; and it is in this way, we have the greatest reason to suppose, that the glorious out-pouring of the Spirit, which we expect at last, will be bestowed.
  • William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians (1792), Sect. V : An Enquiry into the Duty of Christians in general, and what Means ought to be used, in order to promote this Work.

• Many can do nothing but pray, and prayer is perhaps the only thing in which Christians of all denominations can cordially, and unreservedly unite; but in this we may all be one, and in this the strictest unanimity ought to prevail. Were the whole body thus animated by one soul, with what pleasure would Christians attend on all the duties of religion, and with what delight would their ministers attend on all the business of their calling.
  We must not be contented however with praying, without exerting ourselves in the use of means for the obtaining of those things we pray for. Were the children of light, but as wise in their generation as the children of this world, they would stretch every nerve to gain so glorious a prize, nor ever imagine that it was to be obtained in any other way.
  • William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians (1792), Sect. V : An Enquiry into the Duty of Christians in general, and what Means ought to be used, in order to promote this Work.

• Suppose your prayers aren’t answered. What do you say? «Well, it’s God’s will.» «Thy will be done.» Fine, but if it’s God’s will, and He’s going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn’t you just skip the praying part and go right to His will? It’s all very confusing.
  • George Carlin, You Are All Diseased (1999).

• I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same 50% rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don’t. Same as God, 50-50. Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe, the wishing well and the rabbit’s foot, same as the Mojo Man, same as the Voodoo Lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat’s testicles, it’s all the same: 50-50. So just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself.
  • George Carlin, You Are All Diseased (1999).

• To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions they demand, is to fall into superstition.
  • Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), § 2111.

• Can a little speck in the vast universe truly address the Infinite? The answer is that Prayer is precisely what converts that little speck into an entity of inestimable and cosmic significance.
  • Jeffrey Cohen, Following the Synagogue Service, Chapter III, p. 23, Gnesia Publications, 1997, ISBN 0-946000-01-8

• He prayeth best who loveth best
  All things, both great and small.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798; 1817), Part VII.

• He prayeth well who loveth well
  Both man and bird and beast.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798; 1817), Part VII.

• The power of prayer is based on the reality that there is no separation: all atoms, throughout cosmos, are linked. The effectiveness of prayer depends upon the level of focused thought attained by the praying agent. Most prayer is supplication stemming from the astral desire-nature of that agent and is thus limited in scope. Prayer at its higher level is possible through the focused mind; on a yet higher level on the love intention of the soul-infused disciple, the soul itself thus being the agent.
  • Benjamin Creme, Compilation on prayer Share International magazine, (December 2003)

• The response to prayer is conditioned by the Law of Cause and Effect (the Law of Karma as it is called in the East) and the degree of intervention allowed to the Masters of Wisdom as the Divine Intermediaries. Thus Jesus, the Madonna, Krishna, Mohammed, and a host of Saints of all religions are prayed to for intercession. They can, and do, act as intermediaries as the Law allows.
  • Benjamin Creme, Compilation on prayer Share International magazine, (December 2003)

• It really does not matter to Whom you pray; the important thing is to believe in the one you choose. The more conscious the approach, the more mental, the more the will is involved, and the greater the faith of contact, the more the likelihood of the prayer being heard and, within karmic law, answered. My recommendation is to pray to Maitreya, as Representative of God, Divine Intermediary, not least because He has promised to answer the prayers of those who need His help. I would suggest that we should not pray for, and expect to receive, material goods or solutions to life problems, which it is our responsibility to find or work out for ourselves.
  • Benjamin Creme, Compilation on prayer Share International magazine, (December 2003)

D[edit]

• To feel the supreme and moving beauty of the spectacle to which Nature invites her ephemeral guests! … that is what I call prayer.
  • Claude Debussy, quoted in Claude Debussy: His Life and Works (1933) by Léon Vallas.

• Every third-grader knows that prayer is the lifting up of one’s mind and heart to God. But there are many ways of lifting. It begins with vocal prayer, the one all of us are so familiar with. It goes on to mental prayer and meditation, a prayer that all too many people are unfamiliar with. This «lifting» also includes the prayer of silence, the prayer of the heart, contemplative prayer, unknown to still more people.
  • Catherine Doherty, The Gospel Without Compromise (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1976), p. 115.

E[edit]

• In memorizing the prayer, it may be helpful to remind yourself that you are not addressing some extraterrestrial being outside you. The kingdom of heaven is within us, and the Lord is enshrined in the depths of our own consciousness. In this prayer we are calling deep into ourselves, appealing to the spark of the divine that is our real nature.
  • Eknath Easwaran, God Makes the Rivers Flow (1982), p. 184.

• Prayer that craves a particular commodity, — any thing less than all good, — is vicious.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”.

• First pray for the gift of tears, so that through sorrowing you may tame what is savage in your soul. And having confessed your transgressions to the Lord, you will obtain forgiveness from Him.
  • Evagrios the Solitary, On Prayer: One Hundred and Fifty-Three Texts, #5, in Philokalia, as translated and edited by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (1979)

• When praying on behalf of Pharaoh to remove the plague of hail from him, Moses went out of the town to do so (Exod. 9. 20), because he would not pray in the midst of the idols and abominations that polluted the place and rendered it unfit for prayer to the throne of mercy. He went into the open, pure air of God to pray to God.
  • Exodus Rabbah 12, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 94-95

• David advisedly calls one of his Psalms (Psalm 90) ‘A prayer of Moses, the man of God,’ and another Psalm (Psalm 102) he names ‘A prayer of the afflicted,’ to convey to us the truth that the prayer of the greatest and of the most humble of men, that of the richest and that of the poorest, of the slave and of the master, are equal before God.

Prayers should be said in common, master and man mistress and maid, rich and poor together, for all are equal before God.

• Exodus Rabbah 21, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 99

• If your hands are stained by dishonesty, your prayers will be polluted and impure, and an offence to Him to whom you direct them. Do not pray at all before you have your hands purified from every dishonest act.
  • Exodus Rabbah 22, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 100

• God requires but earnest prayer and a penitent heart.
  Israel was redeemed from Egypt in answer to prayer. Joshua became a conqueror because of his prayer; in the days of the judges help was obtained by prayer; Samuel’s help for his people was granted in reply to prayer.
  • Exodus Rabbah 38 Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 105-106

F[edit]

• Reader, pray that soon this Iron Age
  Will crumble, and Beauty escape the rusting cage.
  • Philip José Farmer, in «Beauty in This Iron Age» in Starlanes #11 (Fall 1953); re-published in Pearls From Peoria (2006).

• I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel that it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third place, and teaching the fourth.
  • James O. Fraser 1922 in Geraldine Taylor, Behind the Ranges: The Life-changing Story of J.O. Fraser, Singapore: OMF International (IHQ) Ltd., 1998, 269.

G[edit]

• Prayer is not an asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is a daily admission of one’s weakness.
  • Mahatma Gandhi in Young India (23 September 1926).

• In spite of despair staring me in the face on the political horizon, I have never lost my peace. In fact, I have found people who envy my peace. That peace, I tell you, comes from prayer; I am not a man of learning, but I humbly claim to be a man of prayer. I am indifferent as to the form. Every one is a law unto himself in that respect. But there are some well-marked roads, and it is safe to walk along the beaten tracks, trod by the ancient teachers. Well, I have given my personal testimony. Let every one try and find that as a result of daily prayer, he adds some thing new to his life, something which nothing can be compared.
  • Mahatma Gandhi in Young India (24 September 1931), also in Teachings Of Mahatma Gandhi (1945), edited by Jag Parvesh Chander, p. 457.

• Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real.
  • Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in The Ways and Power of Love: Types, Factors, and Techniques of Moral Transformation (2002) by Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin, Ch. 18: The Techniques of Altruistic Transformation (concluded), p. 339.

• Prayer needs no speech. I have not the slightest doubt that prayer is an unfailing means of cleansing the heart of passions. But it must be combined with the utmost humility.
  • Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in The Ways and Power of Love: Types, Factors, and Techniques of Moral Transformation (2002) by Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin, Ch. 18: The Techniques of Altruistic Transformation (concluded), p. 339.

• Do not complain and cry and pray, but open your eyes and see, for the light is all about you, and it is so wonderful, so beautiful, so far beyond anything of which men have ever dreamt, for which they have ever prayed, and it is for ever and for ever.
  • Gautama Buddha, quoted by Charles Webster Leadbeater, in The Masters and the Path (1925) p. 229

• Nothing fails like prayer.
  • Attributed to Anne Nicol Gaylor in Dan Barker, The Good Atheist (2011), p. 98.

• The feeble prayer which a sick person can offer himself is infinitely better than all the prayers offered for him by others.
  • Genesis Rabbah 53, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p.81

• When Rebecca left her parents’ house they blessed her, and prayed that she might be the mother of millions of people (Gen. 24. 60). Yet she was barren till she herself and Isaac supplicated the Lord. Hence we see that it makes a difference who offers prayers.—Gen. Rabba 60.
  • Genesis Rabbah 60, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p.81-82

• At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
  His looks adorn’d the venerable place;
  Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
  And fools, who came to scoff, remain’d to pray.
  • Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770), line 177.

• From the point of Light within the Mind of God
• Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
• Let Light descend on Earth.
• From the point of Love within the Heart of God
• Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
• May Christ return to Earth.
• From the centre where the Will of God is known
• Let purpose guide the little wills of men –
• The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
• From the centre which we call the race of men
• Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
• And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
• Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
  • The Great Invocation

• For beginners prayer is like a joyous fire kindled in the heart; for the perfect it is like a vigorous sweet-scented light. Or again, prayer is the preaching of the Apostles, an action of faith or, rather, faith itself, ‘that makes real for us the things for which we hope’ (Heb. 11:1), active love, angelic impulse, the power of the bodiless spirits, their work and delight, the Gospel of God, the heart’s assurance, hope of salvation, a sign of purity, a token of holiness, knowledge of God, baptism made manifest, purification in the water of regeneration, a pledge of the Holy Spirit, the exultation of Jesus, the soul’s delight, God’s mercy, a sign of reconciliation, the seal of Christ, a ray of the noetic sun, the heart’s dawn-star, the confirmation of the Christian faith, the disclosure of reconciliation with God, God’s grace, God’s wisdom or, rather, the origin of true and absolute Wisdom; the revelation of God, the work of monks, the life of hesychasts, the source of stillness, and expression of the angelic state. Why say more? Prayer is God, who accomplishes everything in everyone (cf. 1 Cor. 12:6), for there is a single action of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, activating all things through Christ Jesus.
  • Gregory of Sinai, #113, On Commandments and Doctrines. In: Palmer, G. E. H.; Ware, Kallistos; Sherrard, Philip (1999). The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Vol. 4. Faber and Faber, p. 237-8.

H[edit]

• Narrated As-Saburah: The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: Command a boy to pray when he reaches the age of seven years. When he becomes ten years old, then beat him for prayer.
  • HADITH Sunan Abu Dawud 2:494
• Narrated Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-‘As: The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) said: Command your children to pray when they become seven years old, and beat them for it (prayer) when they become ten years old; and arrange their beds (to sleep) separately.
  • Sunan Abu Dawud 2:495

• What returns does prayer show? None, if it is real prayer. For prayer is for growth. We can therefore, never return to what we were thank heaven, for we are growers. So prayer is a call. And it’s answered by a call. We call up and we are called on. We’re summoned, told to advance, to grow. That’s the nerve of prayer, as prayer is the nerve of religion.
  • Gerald Heard, Reflections (1959).

• He that will learn to pray, let him go to Sea.
  • George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651), No. 89.

• In prayer the lips ne’er act the winning part
  Without the sweet concurrence of the heart.
  • Robert Herrick, Hesperides (1648), The Heart.

• Prayer invites the Eternal Presence to suffuse or spirits and let God’s will prevail in our lives. Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.
  • Prayer based on statements of Abraham Joshua Heschel in Shaarei Tefillah (Gates of Prayer, a siddur). Quoted in The Jewish Moral Virtues (1999) by Eugene B. Borowitz and Frances Weinman Schwartz.

• The focus of prayer is not the self. … It is the momentary disregard of our personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute the art of prayer. Feeling becomes prayer in the moment in which we forget ourselves and become aware of God. …. Thus, in beseeching Him for bread, there is one instant, at least, in which our mind is directed neither to our hunger nor to food, but to His mercy. This instant is prayer. We start with a personal concern and live to feel the utmost.
  • Abraham Joshua Heschel, as quoted in Judaism (1998) by Arthur Hertzberg, p. 300

• Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. And yet being alive is no answer to the problems of living. To be or not to be is not the question. The vital question is: how to be and how not to be?
  The tendency to forget this vital question is the tragic disease of contemporary man, a disease that may prove fatal, that may end in disaster. To pray is to recollect passionately the perpetual urgency of this vital question.
  • Abraham Joshua Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, p. 264

I[edit]

• Is there never a chink in the world above
  Where they listen for words from below?
  • Jean Ingelow, «Supper at the Mill», in Poems (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, 1863), p. 48.

• The prayer of Noah,
  He cried out in the darkness, Hear, O God,
  Hear HIM: hear this one; through the gates of death,
  If life be all past praying for, O give
  To Thy great multitude a way to peace;
  Give them to HIM.
  • Jean Ingelow, A Story of Doom, Book IX, Stanza 6, in A Story of Doom and Other Poems (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1867), p. 203.

• I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.
  • Jean Ingelow, Off the Skelligs: A Novel (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1872), Ch. XXXI, p. 571.

• It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good, and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring.
  • Robert G. Ingersoll, «Which Way?» (1884).

• Who is a worshiper? What is prayer? What is real religion? Let me answer these questions.
  Good, honest, faithful work, is worship. The man who ploughs the fields and fells the forests; the man who works in mines, the man who battles with the winds and waves out on the wide sea, controlling the commerce of the world; these men are worshipers. The man who goes into the forest, leading his wife by the hand, who builds him a cabin, who makes a home in the wilderness, who helps to people and civilize and cultivate a continent, is a worshiper.
  Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is the only prayer that deserves an answer, — good, honest, noble work.
  • Robert G. Ingersoll, in appeal to the jury in the trial of C.B. Reynolds for blasphemy (May 1887).

J[edit]

• If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, «Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled»; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead.
  • James 2:15-17 (KJV).

• The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
  • James 5:16 (KJV).

• But petitional prayer is only one department of prayer; and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaning every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine, we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched. Prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion.
  • William James, Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), Lecture XIX, «Other Characteristics».

• But though I repeated my plea, and waited on my knees for nearly an hour, there was no answer.
  • N. K. Jemisin, The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 9

• Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
  • Jesus, in Matthew 6:9-13 , as quoted in Lord’s Prayer to be given in three versions, by Andrew Brown, Independent UK, (18 September 2011)

K[edit]

• I have visited a few astronauts, but all three either ignored me or prayed. The senseless chanting, I confess, repulsed me.
  • Jaroslav Kalfař, Spaceman of Bohemia (2017), Chapter 6

• If prayer is an offering of the lips and pleasing to God, then mercifulness is actually the heart’s offering and is, as Scripture says, a sweet fragrance in God’s nostrils. Oh, when you think of God, never forget that he does not have the least understanding about money. My listener, if you were a speaker, what assignment would you choose: to speak to the rich about practicing generosity or to the poor about practicing mercifulness? I am quite sure which one I would choose or, rather, which one I have chosen-if only I were a speaker. Oh, there is something indescribably reconciling in speaking to the poor man about practicing mercifulness!
  • Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (1847), as translated by H. and E. Hong (1995) p. 321-322

• The surprising happened to him. In proportion as he became more and more earnest in prayer, he had less and less to say, and in the end he became quite silent. He became silent – indeed, what is if possible still more expressly the opposite of speaking, he became a hearer. He had supposed that to pray is to speak; he learnt that to pray is not merely to be silent but to hear. And so it is; to pray is not to hear oneself speak, but it is to be silent, and to remain silent, to wait, until the man who prays hears God.
  • Soren Kierkegaard Kierkegaard’s Christian Discourses & The Lilies of the Field & the Birds of the Air & The Discourses at the Communion on Fridays translated by Walter Lowrie Oxford University Press 1961 — p. 323

• Lord Jesus Christ, our foolish minds are weak; they are more than willing to be drawn—and there is so much that wants to draw us to itself. There is pleasure with its seductive power, the multiplicity with its bewildering distractions, the moment with its infatuating importance and the conceited laboriousness of busyness and the careless time-wasting of light-mindedness and the gloomy brooding of heavy-mindedness—all this will draw us away from ourselves to itself in order to deceive us. But you, who are truth, only you, our Savior and Redeemer, can truly draw a person to yourself, which you have promised to do—that you will draw all to yourself. Then may God grant that by repenting we may come to ourselves, so that you, according to your Word, can draw us to yourself—from on high, but through lowliness and abasement.
  • Søren Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity (1850), as translated by H. and E. Hong (1991), p. 157

• In the face of real danger Elak forgot the gods and drew his rapier. Prayers, he had found, would not halt a dagger’s blow or a strangler’s hands.
  • Henry Kuttner, The Spawn Of Dagon (Originally published in the July 1938 issue of Weird Tales).

L[edit]

• All the world screamed. The Reverend did not pray, having decided long ago his boss had already made up his mind about things.
  • Joe R. Lansdale, The Red-Headed Dead (2014), in John Joseph Adams (ed.), Dead Man’s Hand, ISBN 9781781164501, p. 14

• A knowledge of the hidden side of life by no means teaches us to forget our dead, but it makes us exceedingly careful as to how we think of them; it warns us that we must adopt a resolutely unselfish attitude, that we must forget all about ourselves, and the pain of the apparent separation, and think of them neither with grief nor with longing, but always with strong affectionate wishes for their happiness and their progress. The clairvoyant sees exactly in what manner such wishes affect them, and at once perceives the truth which underlies the teaching of the Catholic Church with regard to the advisability of prayers for the dead. By these both the living and the dead are helped; for the former, instead of being thrown back upon his grief with a hopeless feeling that now he can do nothing, since there is a great gulf between himself and his loved one, is encouraged to turn his affectionate thought into definite action which promotes the happiness and advancement of him who has passed from his sight in the physical world.
  • C.W. Leadbeater The Hidden Side of things by C.W. Leadbeater, (1913)

• If she had supposed the gods ever listened, she would have prayed.
  • Tanith Lee, Game Players in Night’s Sorceries (1987), p. 214

• He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.
  • Luke 18:1 (KJV)

M[edit]

• In prayer you will never be lost.
  • Maitreya, Share International, (March 1990)

• Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.
  • Gospel of Mark 1:35.

• For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
  • Attributed to Jesus in Mark 11:23-24 (KJV).

• Prayer was not so much a matter of asking for something as a clear statement of what was important to you; a definition of who you were, and what you lacked, what you were sorry for, what you wished to be. A peeling away to your essence.
  • Mary McMullen, Death by Bequest (1977), Ch. 19.

• “And for what it’s worth, which in my professional opinion isn’t a bloody lot, I’ll pray for you.”
  “Pray to what?” Marge said. He smiled….
  “Fuck it,” the man said. “Tell you what. What’s the point collecting stuff you don’t use? I’ll pray to all of them.”
  • China Miéville, Kraken (2010), ISBN 978-0-345-49749-9, Chapter 44 (p. 268; ellipsis represents a one-sentence elision of description)

• For those who do not guard their morals,
  Prayers are but wishful thinking.
  For those who do not practice what they preach,
  Oratory is but faithless lying.
  • Milarepa, Songs of Milarepa, as translated and edited by Garma C. C. Chang (1975), p. 17

• Hear his sighs though mute;
  Unskillful with what words to pray, let me
  Interpret for him.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book XI, line 31.

• But that from us aught should ascend to Heav’n
  So prevalent as to concern the mind
  Of God, high-bless’d, or to incline His will,
  Hard to belief may seem; yet this will prayer.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book XI, line 143.

• And if by prayer
  Incessant I could hope to change the will
  Of Him who all things can, I would not cease
  To weary Him with my assiduous cries.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book XI, line 307.

• Mein einziges Gebet ist das um Vertiefung. Durch sie allein kann ich wieder zu Gott gelangen. Vertiefung! Vertiefung!
  • My only prayer is a prayer for depth. Through depth alone can I come closer to God. Depth! Depth!
    • Christian Morgenstern, Stufen: Eine Entwickelung in Aphorismen und Tagebuch-Notizen (1922), p. 14.

N[edit]

• There are not petitional or intercessory prayers in Buddhism. However much we may pray to the Buddha we cannot be saved. The Buddha does not grant favors to those who pray to Him. Instead of petitional prayers there is meditation that leads to self-control, purification and enlightenment. Meditation is neither a silent reverie nor keeping the mind blank. It is an active striving. It serves as a tonic both to the heart and the mind. The Buddha not only speaks of the futility of offering prayers but also disparages a slave mentality. A Buddhist should not pray to be saved, but should rely on himself and win his freedom.
  • Narada Maha Thera, Buddhism in a Nutshell

P[edit]

• I don’t need to pray. I have God in myself.
  • Ashraf Pahlavi, In Bitter American Exile, the Shah’s Twin Sister, Ashraf, Defends Their Dynasty, People (May 05, 1980)

• I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.
  • Paul of Tarsus, 1 Corinthians 14:15 ESV

• Praying without ceasing is not ritualized, nor are there even words. It is a constant state of awareness of oneness with God; it is a sincere seeking for a good thing; and it is a concentration on the thing sought, with faith that it is obtainable.
  • Peace Pilgrim, Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words‎ (1994), p. 75.

• I talk to God but the sky is empty.
  • Sylvia Plath, Draft of letter to Richard Sassoon (1950-02-19), collected in Karen V. Kukil (ed.), The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000).

• I used to pray to recover you.
  • Sylvia Plath, «Daddy» (October 12, 1962), line 14; published posthumously in Ariel (1965).

• Oh dear Pan and all the other Gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside.
  • Plato, Socrates’ prayer in Phaedrus, 279

• He pray’d by quantity,
  And with his repetitions, long and loud,
  All knees were weary.
  • Robert Pollok, The Course of Time (1827), Part VIII, line 628.

• Oats knelt in the mud and tried a prayer, but there was no answering voice from the sky. There never had been. He’d been told never to expect one. That wasn’t how Om worked anymore. Alone of all the gods, he’d been taught, Om delivered the answers straight into the depths of the head. Since the prophet Brutha, Om was the silent god. That’s what they said.
  If you didn’t have faith, then you weren’t anything. There was just the dark.
  He shuddered in the gloom. Was the god silent, or was there no one to speak?
  • Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum (1998)

• That’s what prayers are…it’s frightened people trying to make friends with the bully!
  • Terry Pratchett, The Last Hero (2001)

• God detests the prayers of a person who ignores the law.
  • Solomon, Proverbs 28:9, New Living Translation

Q[edit]

• When trouble toucheth a man, He crieth unto Us (in all postures)- lying down on his side, or sitting, or standing. But when We have solved his trouble, he passeth on his way as if he had never cried to Us for a trouble that touched him! thus do the deeds of transgressors seem fair in their eyes!
  • Quran 10: 12

• «Observe prayer at early morning, at the close of the day, and at the approach of night; for the good deeds drive away the evil deeds.»
  • Quran

• «Put up then with what they say; and celebrate the praise of thy Loud before the sunrise, and before its setting: and some time in the night do thou praise Him, and in the extremes of the day, that thou haply mayest please Him.»
  • Quran

• «Observe prayer at sunset, till the first darkening of the night, and the daybreak reading-for the daybreak reading hath its witnesses’, and watch unto it in the night: this shall he an excess in service.»
  • Quran

• «Seek aid with patience and prayer.»
  • Quran

• «When ye have fulfilled your prayer, remember God standing and sitting, and lying on your sides; and when ye are in safety, then be steadfast in prayer-. Verily prayer is for the believers prescribed and timed.»
  • Quran

R[edit]

• But what happens in true petitionary prayer when it is part of genuine religion? Human beings face the incomprehensible plan of their existence, which they accept as at once incomprehensible and yet as originating in the wisdom and love of God; however it may turn out, whether it brings life or death. people then have a sense of themselves, with their own identity and vital impulses, as willed by God, without waiting to produce or force an intelligible synthesis between their vital impulses and the plan of their existence. And so they say Yes to the incomprehensibility of God and to their own will to live, without wanting to know how the two fit together. The unity of the two, which is not something that we can create, is petitionary prayer, since it is only prayer if it says radically, «Your will, not mine», and it would not be petitionary prayer if it did not dare to ask God for something which we had thought of ourselves. Petitionary prayer is thus simply actualising the incomprehensibility of human existence which, down to the last fibre, comes from God alone and goes out to him, and yet is such that it can hold its own before God and not be destroyed.
  • Karl Rahner and Karl-Heinz Weger, Our Christian Faith, translated by Francis McDonagh (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), pp. 63–64.

• The Divine wisdom has given us prayer, not as a means whereby to obtain the good things of earth, but as a means whereby we learn to do without them; not as a means whereby we escape evil, but as a means whereby we become strong to meet it.
  • Frederick William Robertson, quoted in Daily Strength for Daily Needs (1884), selected by Mary Tileston, February 22nd.

• It is not by prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.
  • Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society (1952), Ch. 1 : Science and Tradition.

• When does the building of the Spirit really begin to appear in a man’s heart? It begins, so far as we can judge, when he first pours out his heart to God in prayer.
  • J. C. Ryle, Do You Pray? (Ipswich: Hunt & Son, 1852), , p. 22.

S[edit]

• I do not pray to ask God for things. I pray to thank God for bringing me where I am.
  • the character Salim in the speculative fiction television series American Gods (first season, 2017)

• It was quite incomprehensible to me — this was before I began going to school — why in my evening prayers I should pray for human beings only. So when my mother had prayed with me and had kissed me good-night, I used to add silently a prayer that I had composed myself for all living creatures. It ran thus: «O, heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath; guard them from all evil, and let them sleep in peace.»
  • Albert Schweitzer, Memoirs of Childhood and Youth; in Reverence for Life: An Anthology of Selected Writings, edited by Thomas Kiernan, New York: Philosophical Library, 1965, p. 1.

• Prayer is the expression of desire; its value comes from our inward aspirations, from their tenor and their strength. Take away desire, the prayer ceases; increase or diminish its intensity, the prayer soars upward or has no wings. Inversely, take away the expression while leaving the desire, and the prayer in many ways remains intact. Has a child who says nothing but looks longingly at a toy in a shop-window, and then at his smiling mother, not formulated the most moving prayer? And even if he had not seen the toy, is not the desire for play, innate in the child as is the thirst for movement, in the eyes of his parents a standing prayer which they grant?
  • Antonin Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life (1920), translated by Mary Ryan. Cork: The Mercier Press, 1948, p. 57.

• Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of steel,
  Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 3, line 70.

• My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
  Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 3.

• All his mind is bent to holiness,
  To number Ave-Maries on his beads.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (c. 1590-91), Act I, scene 3, line 58.

• Rather let my head
  Stoop to the block than these knees bow to any
  Save to the God of heaven and to my king.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (c. 1590-91), Act IV, scene 1, line 124.

• Go with me, like good angels, to my end;
  And, as the long divorce of steel falls on me,
  Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,
  And lift my soul to heaven.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (c. 1613), Act II, scene 1, line 75.

• My prayers
  Are not words duly hallow’d nor my wishes
  More worth than empty vanities; yet prayers and wishes
  Are all I can return.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (c. 1613), Act II, scene 3, line 67.

• «Amen»
  Stuck in my throat.
  • William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act II, scene 2, line 32.

• When I would pray and think, I think and pray
  To several subjects; Heaven hath my empty words.
  • William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603), Act II, scene 4, line 1.

• His worst fault is, that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way; but nobody but has his fault; but let that pass.
  • William Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor (published 1602), Act I, scene 4, line 13.

• Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent.
  • William Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor (published 1602), Act IV, scene 5, line 104.

• If you bethink yourself of any crime
  Unreconcil’d as yet to heaven and grace,
  Solicit for it straight.
  • William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act V, scene 2, line 26.

• If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him?
  If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future?
  If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers?
  If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him?
  If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses?
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Necessity of Atheism (1811)

• Children are the keys of Paradise … They alone are good and wise, Because their thoughts, their very lives, are prayer.
  • Richard Henry Stoddard, Songs of Summer (1856), p. 113.

T[edit]

• The first things that hinders the prayer of a good man from obtaining its effects is a violent anger, and a violent storm in the spirit him who prayers.
  • Jeremy Taylor.

• At the highest level of consciousness, an individual is alone. Such solitude can seem strange, unusual, even difficult. Foolish people try to escape it by means of various dissipations in order to get away from this high point, to some lower point, but wise people remain at this high point, with the help of prayer.
  • Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom, P. Sekirin, trans. (1997).

• Not prayer without faith, nor faith without prayer, but prayer in faith, is the cost of spiritual gifts and graces.
  • Henry Clay Trumbull (1895) Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers. p. 221.

• It is best to read the weather forecast before we pray for rain.
  • Mark Twain, in Merle Johnson (ed.), More Maxims of Mark (1927), p. 8.

W[edit]

• School children and students who love God should never say: “For my part I like mathematics”; “I like French”; “I like Greek.” They should learn to like all these subjects, because all of them develop that faculty of attention which, directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer.
  • Simone Weil, Waiting for God (1951), p. 105.

• MENDEL: Once you’re on your knees, you can’t stand up straight again.
  • Elie Wiesel, The Trial of God (1979), Act I

• True prayer is waiting for God to come when and how He wants to.
  • Edmund Wojtyła, older brother of Karol Wojtyła (later Pope John Paul II) as quoted in Evert, Jason. Saint John Paul the Great: His Five Loves (Kindle Locations 188-189). Totus Tuus Press.

• Rapt into still communion that transcends
  The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
  His mind was a thanksgiving to the power
  That made him; it was blessedness and love!
  • William Wordsworth, The Excursion

U[edit]

• God, though this life is but a wraith,
  Although we know not what we use,
  Although we grope with little faith,
  Give me the heart to fight—and lose.
  • Louis Untermeyer, «Prayer», line 1, in Challenge (New York: The Century Co., 1915), p. 7.

• From compromise and things half done,
  Keep me with stern and stubborn pride;
  And when, at last, the fight is won,
  God, keep me still unsatisfied.
  • Louis Untermeyer, «Prayer», line 17, in Challenge (New York: The Century Co., 1914), p. 8.

Y[edit]

• Prayer ardent opens heaven.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VIII, line 721.

Z[edit]

• Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you 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 you may be eligible after the destruction of your 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 your receiving 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, Creatures of Light and Darkness (1969), Chapter 3, “Death, Life, the Magician and Roses”

Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations[edit]

Quotes reported in Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 625-29.

• Yet then from all my grief, O Lord,
  Thy mercy set me free,
  Whilst in the confidence of pray’r
  My soul took hold on thee.
  • Joseph Addison, Miscellaneous Poems, Divine Ode, made by a Gentleman on the Conclusion of his Travels, Verse 6.

• And from the prayer of Want, and plaint of Woe,
  O never, never turn away thine ear!
  Forlorn, in this bleak wilderness below,
  Ah! what were man, should Heaven refuse to hear!
  • James Beattie, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Book I, Stanza 29.

• She knows omnipotence has heard her prayer
  And cries, «It shall be done—sometime, somewhere.»
  • Ophelia G. Browning, Unanswered.

• Just my vengeance complete,
  The man sprang to his feet,
  Stood erect, caught at God’s skirts, and prayed!
  So, I was afraid!
  • Robert Browning, Instans Tyrannus, VII.

• They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!
  • Robert Burns, The Cotter’s Saturday Night (1786), Stanza 6.

• Father! no prophet’s laws I seek,—
  Thy laws in Nature’s works appear;—
  I own myself corrupt and weak,
  Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear.
  • Lord Byron, Prayer of Nature.

• Father of Light! Great God of Heaven!
  Hear’st thou the accents of despair?
  Can guilt like man’s be e’er forgiven?
  Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?
  • Lord Byron, Prayer of Nature.

• Pray to be perfect, though material leaven
  Forbid the spirit so on earth to be;
  But if for any wish thou darest not pray,
  Then pray to God to cast that wish away.
  • Hartley Coleridge, Poems (posthumous), Prayer.

• The saints will aid if men will call:
  For the blue sky bends over all.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel (c. 1797-1801, published 1816), conclusion to Part 1.

• But maybe prayer is a road to rise,
  A mountain path leading toward the skies
  To assist the spirit who truly tries.
  But it isn’t a shibboleth, creed, nor code,
  It isn’t a pack-horse to carry your load,
  It isn’t a wagon, it’s only a road.
  And perhaps the reward of the spirit who tries
  Is not the goal, but the exercise!
  • Edmund Vance Cooke, Prayer, The Uncommon Commoner.

• Not as we wanted it,
  But as God granted it.
  • Arthur Quiller-Couch, To Bearers.

• I always pray before any of the operation. I think God help me know what to do.
  • Ben Carson, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story. (p. 194).

• And Satan trembles when he sees
  The weakest saint upon his knees.
  • William Cowper, Hymns, Exhortation to Prayer.

• I ask not a life for the dear ones,
  All radiant, as others have done,
  But that life may have just enough shadow
  To temper the glare of the sun;
  I would pray God to guard them from evil,
  But my prayer would bound back to myself:
  Ah! a seraph may pray for a sinner,
  But a sinner must pray for himself.
  • Charles M. Dickinson, The Children.

• Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care
  To grant, before we can conclude the prayer:
  Preventing angels met it half the way,
  And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.
  • John Dryden, Britannia Rediviva, first lines.

• Grant folly’s prayers that hinder folly’s wish,
  And serve the ends of wisdom.
  • George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book IV.

• Almighty Father! let thy lowly child,
  Strong in his love of truth, be wisely bold,—
  A patriot bard, by sycophants reviled,
  Let him live usefully, and not die old!
  • Ebenezer Elliott, Corn Law Rhymes, A Poet’s Prayer.

• Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed,
  Cannot withhold his conquering aid.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Nun’s Aspiration.

• 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 desires not from the bottom of his heart, offers a deceitful prayer.
  • François Fénelon, Pious Thoughts, Advice Concerning Prayer. Mrs. Mant’s translation.

• Ejaculations are short prayers darted up to God on emergent occasions. They are the artillery of devotion, and their principal use is against the fiery darts of the devil.
  • Thomas Fuller, Good Thoughts in Bad Times, Meditations on all Kinds of Prayers, Ejaculations, their Use, V.

• So a good prayer, though often used, is still fresh and fair in the ears and eyes of Heaven.
  • Thomas Fuller, Good Thoughts in Bad Times, Meditations on all Kinds of Prayers, XII.

• O Lord of Courage grave,
  O Master of this night of Spring!
  Make firm in me a heart too brave
  To ask Thee anything.
  • John Galsworthy.

• Who goes to bed, and doth not pray,
  Maketh two nights to every day!
  • George Herbert, The Temple (1633), The Church, Charms and Knots, Stanza 4.

• Resort to sermons, but to prayers most:
  Praying’s the end of preaching.
  • George Herbert, The Temple (1633), The Church Porch, Stanza 69.

• O God, if in the day of battle I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me.
  • William King attributes the prayer to a soldier, in his Anecdotes of his own time, p. 7. (Ed. 1818).

• My brother kneels, so saith Kabir,
  To stone and brass in heathen-wise,
  But in my brother’s voice I hear
  My own unanswered agonies.
  His God is as his fates assign
  His prayer is all the world’s—and mine.
  • Rudyard Kipling, Song of Kabir.

• I ask and wish not to appear
  More beauteous, rich or gay:
  Lord, make me wiser every year,
  And better every day.
  • Charles Lamb, A Birthday Thought.

• You know I say
  Just what I think, and nothing more nor less,
  And, when I pray, my heart is in my prayer.
  I cannot say one thing and mean another:
  If I can’t pray, I will not make believe!
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus, Part III, Giles Corey, Act II, scene 3.

• Let one unceasing, earnest prayer
  Be, too, for light, for strength to bear
  Our portion of the weight of care,
  That crushes into dumb despair
  One half the human race.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Goblet of Life, Stanza 10.

• Like one in prayer I stood.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Voices of the Night, prelude, Stanza 11.

• Vigilate et orate.
  • Watch and pray.
  • Mark, XIII. 33. (From the Vulgate).

• O Domine Deus! speravi in te;
  O care mi Jesu! nunc libera me.
  In dura catena, in misera poena,
  Disidero te.
  Languendo, jemendo, et genuflectendo,
  Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me!
  • O Lord, my God,
    I have trusted in Thee;
    O Jesu, my dearest One,
    Now set me free.
    In prison’s oppression,
    In sorrow’s obsession,
    I weary for Thee.
    With sighing and crying,
    Bowed down in dying,
    I adore Thee, I implore Thee, set me free.
  • Mary, Queen of Scots; written in her Book of Devotion before her execution. Translation by Swinburne, Mary Stuart.

• God warms his hands at man’s heart when he prays.
  • John Masefield, Widow in the Bye Street, Part VI.

• Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
  • Matthew, VII. 7.

• Every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth.
  • Matthew, VII. 8.

• Not what we wish, but what we want,
  Oh! let thy grace supply,
  The good unask’d, in mercy grant;
  The ill, though ask’d, deny.
  • James Merrick, Hymn.

• Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
  Uttered or unexpressed,
  The motion of a hidden fire
  That trembles in the breast.
  • James Montgomery, Original Hymns, What is Prayer?

• Prayer moves the arm
  Which moves the world,
  And brings salvation down.
  • James Montgomery, Prayer.

• As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean
  Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,
  So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion
  Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee.
  • Thomas Moore, As Down in the Sunless Retreats.

• O sad estate
  Of human wretchedness; so weak is man,
  So ignorant and blind, that did not God
  Sometimes withhold in mercy what we ask,
  We should be ruined at our own request.
  • Hannah More, Moses in the Bulrushes, Part I.

• Now I lay me down to take my sleep,
  I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep;
  If I should die before I wake,
  I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.
  • New England Primer (1814).

• Father of All! in every age,
  In every clime ador’d,
  By saint, by savage, and by sage,
  Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!
  • Alexander Pope, Universal Prayer.

• If I am right, Thy grace impart,
  Still in the right to stay;
  If I am wrong, O teach my heart
  To find that better way!
  • Alexander Pope, Universal Prayer.

• In all thou dost first let thy Prayers ascend,
  And to the Gods thy Labours first commend,
  From them implore Success, and hope a prosperous End.
  • Pythagoras, Golden Verses, line 49. See M. Dacier’s Life of Pythagoras.

• They were ordinary soldiers, just the common Jean and Hans,
  One from the valley of the Rhine and one from fair Provence.
  They were simple-hearted fellows — every night each said his prayer:
  The one prayed Vater Unser and the other Notre Père.
  • Charles Alex Richmond, Lord’s Prayer.

• At the muezzin’s call for prayer,
  The kneeling faithful thronged the square,
  And on Pushkara’s lofty height
  The dark priest chanted Brahma’s might.
  Amid a monastery’s weeds
  An old Franciscan told his beads;
  While to the synagogue there came
  A Jew to praise Jehovah’s name.
  The one great God looked down and smiled
  And counted each His loving child;
  For Turk and Brahmin, monk and Jew
  Had reached Him through the gods they knew.
  • Harry Romaine, Ad Cœlum, in Munsey’s Magazine (January 1895).

• I pray the prayer the Easterners do,
  May the peace of Allah abide with you;
  Wherever you stay, wherever you go,
  May the beautiful palms of Allah grow;
  Through days of labor, and nights of rest,
  The love of Good Allah make you blest;
  So I touch my heart—as the Easterners do,
  May the peace of Allah abide with you.
  • Salaam Alaikum (peace be with you). Author unknown.

• In vota miseros ultimus cogit timor.
  • Fear of death drives the wretched to prayer.
  • Seneca the Younger, Agamemnon, 560.

• Nulla res carius constat quam quæ precibus empta est.
  • Nothing costs so much as what is bought by prayers.
  • Seneca the Younger, De Beneficiis, II. 1.

• The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body.
  • Seneca the Younger, Epistles, XIV.

• Earth bears no balsams for mistakes;
  Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
  That did his will: but thou, O Lord,
  Be merciful to me, a fool.
  • Edward Rowland Sill, The Fool’s Prayer.

• Four things which are not in thy treasury,
  I lay before thee, Lord, with this petition:—
  My nothingness, my wants,
  My sins, and my contrition.
  • Robert Southey, Occasional Pieces, XIX. Imitated from the Persian.

• Prayers are heard in heaven very much in proportion to our faith. Little faith will get very great mercies, but great faith still greater.
  • Charles Spurgeon, Gleanings Among the Sheaves, Believing Prayer.

• To pray together, in whatever tongue or ritual, is the most tender brotherhood of hope and sympathy that men can contract in this life.
  • Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, Corinne (1807), Book X, Chapter V.

• Holy Father, in thy mercy,
  Hear our anxious prayer.
  Keep our loved ones, now far absent,
  ‘Neath Thy care.
  • Isabella S. Stephenson, hymn, sung universally among the British troops in the Great War.

• Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take,
  And stab my spirit broad awake;
  Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
  Choose Thou, before that spirit die,
  A piercing pain, a killing sin,
  And to my dead heart turn them in.
  • Robert Louis Stevenson, Celestial Surgeon.

• My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.
  • Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, 28.

• Speak to Him thou for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet—
  Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.
  • Alfred Tennyson, Higher Pantheism.

• More things are wrought by prayer
  Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
  Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
  For what are men better than sheep or goats
  That nourish a blind life within the brain,
  If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
  Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
  • Alfred Tennyson, Morte d’Arthur (1842), line 247.

• Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer.
  • Alfred Tennyson, St. Simeon Stylites, line 7.

• «‘Twas then belike,» Honorious cried,
  «When you the public fast defied,
  Refused to heav’n to raise a prayer,
  Because you’d no connections there.»
  • John Trumbull, McFingal, Canto I, line 541.

• Prayer is
  The world in tune,
  A spirit-voyce,
  And vocall joyes,
  Whose Eccho is heaven’s blisse.
  • Henry Vaughan, The Morning Watch.

• Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.
  • Cease to think that the decrees of the gods can be changed by prayers.
  • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), VI. 376.

• Audiit, et voti Phœbus succedere partem
  Mente didit, partem volucres dispersit in auras.
  • Ae half the prayer wi’ Phœbus grace did find
    The t’other half he whistled down the wind.
  • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), XI. 794. Translation by Scott—Waverley, Chapter XLIII. Same idea in Homer, Iliad, XVI, 250.

• J’ai toujours fait une prière à Dieu, qui est fort courte. La voici: Mon Dieu, rendez nos ennemis bien ridicules! Dieu m’a exaucé.
  • I always made one prayer to God, a very short one. Here it is: «O Lord, make our enemies quite ridiculous!» God granted it.
    • Voltaire, Letter to Étienne Noël Damilaville, 1767-05-16

• Prayer moves the Hand which moves the world.
  • John Aikman Wallace, There is an Eye that Never Sleeps, line 19.

• Who is this before whose presence idols tumble to the sod?
  While he cries out—»Allah Akbar! and there is no god but God!»
  • William Ross Wallace, El Amin, The Faithful.

• Making their lives a prayer.
  • John Greenleaf Whittier, To A. K. on Receiving a Basket of Sea Mosses.

• Though smooth be the heartless prayer, no ear in heaven will mind it;
  And the finest phrase falls dead, if there is no feeling behind it.
  • Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Art and Heart, Stanza 2.

• The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.
  • William Wordsworth, Excursion, Book I.

• «What is good for a bootless bene?»
  With these dark words begins my Tale;
  And their meaning is, whence can comfort spring
  When Prayer is of no avail?
  • William Wordsworth, Force of Prayer.

• The bells of Ryleston seemed to say,
  While she sat listening in the shade,
  With vocal music, «God us ayde!»
  And all the hills were glad to bear
  Their part in this effectual prayer.
  • William Wordsworth, White Doe of Rylstone, Canto VII, Stanza 11.

• Doubt not but God who sits on high,
  Thy secret prayers can hear;
  When a dead wall thus cunningly
  Conveys soft whispers to the ear.
  • Verse inscribed in the Whispering Gallery of Gloucester Cathedral.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)[edit]

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• A certain joyful, though humble, confidence becomes us when we pray in the Mediator’s name. It is due to Him; when we pray in His name it should be without wavering. Remember His merits, and how prevalent they must be. » Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace.»
  • Nehemiah Adams, p. 460.

• 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, p. 462.

• Let your prayers be composed of thanksgiving, praise, confession, and petition, without any argument or exhortation addressed to those who are supposed to be praying with you. Adopt no fixed forms of expression, except such as you obtain from Scripture. Express your desire in the briefest, simplest form, without circumlocution. Hallow God’s name by avoiding its unnecessary repetition. Adopt the simple devotional phrases of Scripture; but avoid the free use of its figures, and all quaint and doubtful application of its terms to foreign subjects. Pray to God and not to man.
  • Joseph Addison Alexander, p. 472.

• Like an echo from a ruined castle, prayer is an echo from the ruined human soul of the sweet promise of God.
  • William Arnot, p. 464.

• In the primitive church were not prayers simple, unpremeditated, united; prayers of the well-taught apostle; prayers of the accomplished scholar; prayers of the rough but fervent peasant; prayers of the new and zealous convert; prayers which importuned and wrestled with an instant and irrepressible urgency; — were they not an essential part of that religion, which holy fire had kindled; and which daily supplications alone could fan?
  • William Arthur, p. 473.

• How can He grant you what you do not desire to receive?
  • Augustine of Hippo, p. 462.

• He that loveth little prayeth little; he that loveth much prayeth much.
  • Augustine of Hippo, p. 464.

• Any heart turned Godward feels more joy
  In one short hour of prayer, than e’er was raised
  By all the feasts of earth since its foundation.
  • Philip James Bailey, p. 459.

• A good man’s prayers
  Will from the deepest dungeon climb to heaven’s height,
  And bring a blessing down.
  • Joanna Bailie, p. 459.

• Every praying Christian will find that there is no Gethsemane without its angel.
  • Thomas Binney, p. 469.

• A prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward.
  • Phillips Brooks, p. 457.

• Prayer is not conquering God’s reluctance, but taking hold upon God’s willingness.
  • Phillips Brooks, p. 458.

• The best and sweetest flowers of paradise God gives to His people when they are upon their knees. Prayer is the gate of heaven.
  • Thomas Brooks, p. 458.

• Cold prayers shall never have any warm answers. God will suit His returns to our requests. Lifeless services shall have lifeless answers. When men are dull, God will be dumb.
  • Thomas Brooks, p. 462.

• «Continuing instant in prayer.» The Greek is a metaphor taken from hunting dogs that never give over the game till they have got their prey.
  • Thomas Brooks, p. 464.

• Private prayer is so far from being a hindrance to a man’s business, that it is the way of ways to bring down a blessing from heaven upon it.
  • Thomas Brooks, p. 471.

• If any prayer be a duty, then secret prayer must be superlatively so, for it prepares and fits the soul for all other supplication.
  • Thomas Brooks, p. 471.

• God’s hearing of our prayers does not depend upon sanctifi- cation, but upon Christ’s intercession; not upon what we are in ourselves, but what we are in the Lord Jesus; both our persons and our prayers are accepted in the Beloved.
  • Thomas Brooks, p. 473.

• Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered.
  Her feet were firmly planted on the Rock;
  Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted,
  Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock.
  She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer,
  And cries, «It shall be done,» sometime, somewhere.
  Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say ungranted;
  Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done.
  The work began when first your prayer was uttered,
  And God will finish what He has begun.
  If you will keep the incense burning there,
  His glory you shall see sometime, somewhere.
  • Robert Browning, p. 474.

• Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.
  • John Bunyan, p. 468.

• When Christ went up into a mountain apart to pray, He dismissed the multitude, to teach us that when we address ourselves to God, we must first dismiss the multitude. We must send away the multitude of worldly cares, worldly thoughts, worldly concerns and business, when we would call upon God in duty.
  • William Burkitt, p. 465.

• Let faith each meek petition fill,
  And waft it to the skies;
  And teach our heart ’tis goodness still
  That grants it or denies.
  • Joseph Dacre Carlyle, p. 460.

• Let family worship be short, savory, simple, plain, tender, heavenly.
  • Richard Cecil, p. 471.

• Consider how august a privilege it is, when angels are present, and archangels throng around, when cherubim and seraphim encircle with their blaze the throne, that a mortal may approach with unrestrained confidence, and converse with heaven’s dread Sovereign! O, what honor was ever conferred like this?
  • Chrysostom, p. 459.

• Be not afraid to pray — to pray is right.
  Pray if thou canst with hope; but ever pray,
  Though hope be weak or sick with long delay;
  Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.
  • Hartley Coleridge, p. 461.

• He prayeth best who loveth best
  All things both great and small:
  For the dear God who loveth us,
  He made and loveth all,
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, p. 463.

• True prayer is an earnest soul’s direct converse with its God.
  • Theodore L. Cuyler, p. 456.

• Wise is that Christian parent who begins every morning with the word of God and fervent prayer.
  • Theodore L. Cuyler, p. 471.

• Answered prayers cover the field of providential history as flowers cover western prairies.
  • Theodore L. Cuyler, p. 474.

• In eternity it will be a terrible thing for many a man to meet his own prayers. Their very language will condemn him; for he knew his duty, but he did it not.
  • Theodore L. Cuyler, p. 475.

• When we pray to God with entire assurance, it is Himself who has given us the spirit of prayer.
  • St. Cyprian, p. 460.

• Are we to suppose that the only being in the universe who cannot answer prayer is that One who alone has all power at His command? The weak theology that professes to believe that prayer has merely a subjective benefit is infinitely less scientific than the action of the child who confidently appeals to a Father in heaven.
  • John William Dawson, p. 461.

• Saviour, breathe an evening blessing
  Ere repose our spirits seal;
  Sin and want we come confessing;
  Thou canst save, and Thou canst heal.
  • James Edmeston, p. 475.

• Lord! Thou art with Thy people still; they see Thee in the night-watches, and their hearts burn within them as Thou talkest with them by the way. And Thou art near to those that have not known Thee; open their eyes that they may see Thee — see Thee weeping over them, and saying, «Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life»— see Thee hanging on the cross and saying, «Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do»—see Thee as Thou wilt come again in Thy glory to judge them at the last. Amen.
  • George Eliot, p. 464.

• Prayer, then, does not consist in sweet feelings, nor in the charms of an excited imagination, nor in that illumination of the intellect that traces with ease the sublimest truths of God; nor even in a certain consolation in the view of God; all these things are external gifts from His hand, in the absence of which love may exist even more purely, as the soul may then attach itself immediately and solely to God, instead of to His mercies.
  • François Fénelon, p. 458.

• For «we know not what we should pray for as we ought; » but love leads us on, abandons us to all the operations of grace, puts us entirely at the disposal of God’s will, and thus prepares us for all His designs.
  • François Fénelon, p. 465.

• Prayer is so necessary, and the source of so many blessings, that he who has discovered the treasure cannot be prevented from having recourse to it, whenever he has an opportunity.
  • François Fénelon, p. 466.

• Ah! well it is for us that God is a loving Father, who takes our very prayers and thanksgivings rather for what we mean than for what they are; just as parents smile on the trailing weeds that their ignorant little ones bring them for flowers.
  • Edward Garrett, p. 462.

• Good prayers never come creeping home. I am sure I shall receive what I ask for or what I should ask.
  • Bishop Joseph Hall, p. 461.

• Your child is falling from a window. By the action of a natural law he will be killed. But he cries out for help, «Father! father!» Hearing his call, in this his day of trouble, you rush forth and catch him in your arms. Your child is saved. Natural law would have killed him, but you interposed, and, without a miracle, saved him. And cannot the great Father of all do what an earthly parent does?
  • Newman Hall, p. 473.

• Prayer is the breath of a new-born soul, and there can be no Christian life without it.
  • Rowland Hill, p. 457.

• I like ejaculatory prayer; it reaches heaven before the devil can get a shot at it.
  • Rowland Hill, p. 470.

• There it is — in such patient silence — that we accumulate the inward power which we distribute and spend in action; that the soul acquires a greater and more vigorous being, and gathers up its collective forces to bear down upon the piecemeal difficulties of life and scatter them to dust; there alone can we enter into that spirit of self-abandonment by which we take up the cross of duty, however heavy, with feet however worn and bleeding.
  • Wayland Hoyt, p. 470.

• If I were an impenitent child of godly parents, and should die so, I would rather go into eternity facing a legion of devils than my mother’s prayers.
  • Herrick Johnson, p. 475.

• He who has a pure heart will never cease to pray; and he who will be constant in prayer, shall know what it is to have a pure heart.
  • Pierre La Combe, p. 464.

• Worship is the earthly act by which we most distinctly recognize our personal immortality; men who think that they will be extinct a few years hence do not pray. In worship we spread out our insignificant life, which yet is the work of the Creator’s hands, and the purchase of the Redeemer’s blood, before the Eternal and All-Merciful, that we may learn the manners of a higher sphere, and fit ourselves for companionship with saints and angels, and for the everlasting sight of the face of God.
  • Henry Liddon, p. 457.

• Prayer is the act by which man, detaching himself from the embarrassments of sense and nature, ascends to the true level of his destiny.
  • Henry Liddon, p. 458.

• I have been driven many times to my knees, by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.
  • Abraham Lincoln, p. 468.

• The church converteth the whole world by blood and prayer.
  • Martin Luther, p. 468.

• Ah, what is it we send up thither, where our thoughts are either a dissonance or a sweetness and a grace?
  • George MacDonald, p. 461.

• O Lord, we rejoice that we are Thy making, though Thy handiwork is not very clear in our outer man as yet. We bless Thee that we feel Thy hand making us. What if it be in pain? Evermore we hear the voice of the potter above the hum and grind of His wheel. Father, Thou only knowest how we love Thee. Fashion the clay to Thy beautiful will.
  • George MacDonald, p. 464.

• If you are in the spirit of prayer, do not be long, because other people will not be able to keep pace with you in such unusual spirituality, and if you are not in the spirit of prayer, do not be long, because you will be sure to weary the listeners.
  • John Macdonald, p. 472.

• The prayer that begins with trustfulness, and passes on into waiting, even while in sorrow and sore need, will always end in thankfulness and triumph and praise.
  • Alexander Maclaren, p. 461.

• There is no such thing in the long history of God’s kingdom as an unanswered prayer. Every true desire from a child’s heart finds some true answer in the heart of God.
  • Norman MacLeod, p. 473.

• Whatever we are directed to pray for, we are also exhorted to work for; we are not permitted to mock Jehovah, asking that of Him which we deem not worth our pains to acquire.
  • Elias Lyman Magoon, p. 469.

• Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language, or music without atmosphere.
  • James Martineau, p. 466.

• A house without family worship has neither foundation nor covering.
  • John Mitchell Mason, p. 471.

• Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer, and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble.
  • Philip Melanchthon, p. 466.

• Prayer is so mighty an instrument that no one ever thoroughly mastered all its keys. They sweep along the infinite scale of man’s wants and God’s goodness.
  • Hugh Miller, p. 458.

• O Thou by whom we come to God —
  The Life, the Truth, the Way;
  The path of prayer Thyself hast trod;
  Lord, teach us how to pray.
  • James Montgomery, p. 460.

• Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul.
  • Hannah More, p. 458.

• There is no burden of the spirit but is lightened by kneeling under it. Little by little, the bitterest feelings are sweetened by the mention of them in prayer. And agony itself stops swelling, if we can only cry sincerely, » My God, my God!»
  • William Mountford, p. 466.

• Not every hour, nor every day, perhaps, can generous wishes ripen into kind actions; but there is not a moment that cannot be freighted with prayer.
  • William Mountford, p. 470.

• Then let us earnest be,
  And never faint in prayer;
  He loves our importunity,
  And makes our cause His care.
  • John Newton, p. 462.

• In presenting the Divine promises at the throne of grace, we present the best of names at a bank that is solvent. Let us, when we would pray, consider well whether we have a promise for our plea.
  • Robert M. Offord, p. 460.

• Expect an answer. If no answer is desired, why pray? True prayer has in it a strong element of expectancy.
  • Robert M. Offord, p. 462.

• Ask in simplicity. True need forgets to be formal. Its utterances fly from the heart as sparks from a blacksmith’s anvil. Set phrases, long sentences, polysyllabic words, find little favor with the soul that is athirst for God and His grace. How brief are the sentences of the immortal and immutable prayer, which Christ taught His disciples! Not a long word is there. Temptation is the longest, and the majority of the words are of one syllable. Do you essay to lead others in prayer? Utter no word that any that hear you cannot understand. Express their need as well as your own. Do not go to the mercy-seat on stilts.
  • Robert M. Offord, p. 471.

• Prayer, with our Lord, was a refuge from the storm; almost every word He uttered during that last tremendous scene was prayer; prayer the most earnest, the most urgent, repeated, continued, proceeding from the recesses of the soul, private, solitary; prayer for deliverance, prayer for strength; above every thing prayer for resignation.
  • William Paley, p. 467.

• As in poetry, so in prayer, the whole subject matter should be furnished by the heart, and the understanding should be allowed only to shape and arrange the effusions of the heart in the manner best adapted to answer the end designed. From the fullness of a heart overflowing with holy affections, as from a copious fountain, we should pour forth a torrent of pious, humble, and ardently affectionate feelings; while our understandings only shape the channel and teach the gushing streams of devotion where to flow, and when to stop.
  • Edward Payson, p. 464.

• I think that if we would, every evening, come to our Master’s feet, and tell Him where we have been, what we have done, what we have said, and what were the motives by which we have been actuated, it would have a salutary effect upon our whole conduct.
  • Edward Payson, p. 466.

• Our public prayers too often consist almost entirely of passages of Scripture—not always judiciously chosen or well arranged — and common-place phrases, which have been transmitted down for ages, from one generation to another, selected and put together just as we would compose a sermon or essay, while the heart is allowed no share in the performance; so that we may more properly be said to make a prayer than to pray.
  • Edward Payson, p. 472.

• We lay it down as an elemental principle of religion, that no large growth in holiness was ever gained by one who did not take time to be often and long alone with God. No otherwise can the great central idea of God enter into a man’s life, and dwell there supreme.
  • Austin Phelps, p. 459.

• Have you never observed how free the Lord’s Prayer is of any material that can tempt to subtle self-inspection in the art of devotion? It is full of an outflowing of thought and of emotion toward great objects of desire, great necessities, and great perils.
  • Austin Phelps, p. 465.

• Patience and perseverance are never more thoroughly Christian graces than when features of prayer.
  • Samuel I. Prime, p. 461.

• Happy are they who freely mingle prayer and toil till God responds to the one and rewards the other.
  • Samuel I. Prime, p. 468.

• A life of prayer is a life whose litanies are ever fresh acts of self-devoting love.
  • Frederick William Robertson, p. 457.

• The Divine Wisdom has given us prayer, not as a means whereby to obtain the good things of earth, but as a means whereby we learn to do without them; not as a means whereby we escape evil, but as a means whereby we become strong to meet it.
  • Frederick William Robertson, p. 468.

• Faithful prayer always implies correlative exertion; and no man can ask honestly and hopefully to be delivered from temptation, unless he has himself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out of it.
  • John Ruskin, p. 469.

• Are we silent to Jesus? Think! Have you nothing to ask Him? Nothing to thank Him for? Nothing to praise Him for? Nothing to confess? Oh, poor soul, go back to Bethlehem — to Gethsemane, to Calvary, and remember at what a cost the vail before the Holies was rent in twain that thou mightest enter it.
  • Anna Shipton, p. 474.

• Prayer pulls the rope below, and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly; others give but an occasional pluck at the rope; but he who wins with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously, with all his might.
  • Charles Spurgeon, p. 460.

• Sometimes a fog will settle over a vessel’s deck and yet leave the topmast clear. Then a sailor goes up aloft and gets a lookout which the helmsman on deck cannot get. So prayer sends the soul aloft; lifts it above the clouds in which our selfishness and egotism befog us, and gives us a chance to see which way to steer.
  • Charles Spurgeon, p. 469.

• For spiritual blessings, let our prayers be importunate, perpetual, and persevering; for temporal blessings, let them be general, short, conditional, and modest.
  • Jeremy Taylor, p. 461.

• Easiness of desire is a great enemy to the success of a good man’s prayer. Our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg tamely for those things for which we ought to die; which are more precious than imperial sceptres, richer than the spoils of the sea or the treasures of Indian hills.
  • Jeremy Taylor, p. 462.

• There is something in every act of prayer that for a time stills the violence of passion, and elevates and purifies the affections.
  • Jeremy Taylor, p. 465.

• From the violence and rule of passion, from a servile will, and a commanding lust, from pride and vanity, from false opinion and ignorant confidence; from improvidence and prodigality, from envy and the spirit of slander; from sensuality, from presumption and from despair; from a state of temptation and a hardened spirit; from delaying of repentance and persevering in sin; from unthankfulness and irreligion, and from seducing others; from all infatuation of soul, folly, and madness; from willfulness, self-love, and vain ambition; from a vicious life and an unprovided death, good Lord, deliver us.
  • Jeremy Taylor, p. 468.

• When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life; every petition to God is a precept to man.
  • Jeremy Taylor, p. 469.

• Prayers born out of murmuring are always dangerous. When, therefore, we are in a discontented mood, let’us take care what we cry for, lest God give it to us, and thereby punish us.
  • William Mackergo Taylor, p. 465.

• They tell us of the fixed laws of nature! but who dares maintain that He who fixed these laws cannot use them for the purpose of answering His people’s prayers?
  • William Mackergo Taylor, p. 473.

• We kneel, how weak; we rise, how full of power!
  Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong,
  Or others — that we are not always strong,
  That we are ever overborne with care,
  That we should ever weak or heartless be,
  Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer,
  And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?
  • Richard Chenevix Trench, p. 467.

• Prayer moves the hand which moves the world.
  • John Aikman Wallace, p. 459.

• Prayer is the pulse of the renewed soul; and the constancy of its beat is the test and measure of the spiritual life.
  • Octavius Winslow, p. 458.

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989)[edit]

• I Pray Heaven to Bestow The Best of Blessing on THIS HOUSE, and on All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof!
  • John Adams, letter to his wife Abigail, November 2, 1800, the day after he moved into the White House. Letters of John Adams Addressed to His Wife, ed. Charles Francis Adams, p. 267 (1841). President Franklin D. Roosevelt had this lettered in gold in the marble over the fireplace in the State Dining Room of the White House. The quotation above follows the capitalization used in the inscription.

• Grant us a common faith that man shall know bread and peace—that he shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do his best not only in our own lands, but throughout the world. And in that faith let us march toward the clean world our hands can make.
  • Stephen Vincent Benét, Prayer, concluding sentences (1942). Archibald MacLeish, poet and Librarian of Congress, asked Benét to write «The United Nations Prayer» to be used in the celebration of Flag Day, 1942. President Franklin D. Roosevelt used it to close his radio address on Flag Day, June 14, 1942. Adlai E. Stevenson used this final section of the prayer on his Christmas cards in 1964.

• For Mercy has a human heart
  Pity, a human face:
  And Love, the human form divine,
  And Peace, the human dress.
  Then every man of every clime,
  That prays in his distress,
  Prays to the human form divine
  Love Mercy Pity Peace.
  • William Blake, «The Divine Image», stanzas 3 and 4, lines 9–16, The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman (1982), p. 12–13. First published in 1789.

• «God bless us every one!» said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
  • Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1963), stave 3, p. 74. First published in 1843.

• Lord, make me a channel of your peace.
  Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
  Where there is offense, forgiveness.
  Where there is discord, reconciliation.
  Where there is doubt, faith.
  Where there is despair, hope.
  Where there is sadness, joy.
  Where there is darkness, your light.
  we give, we are made rich.
  If we forget ourselves, we find peace.
  If we forgive, we receive forgiveness.
  we die, we receive eternal resurrection.
  Give us peace, Lord.
  • Serenity Prayer Attributed to Francis of Assisi, in Auspicius van Corstanje, Francis: Bible of the Poor (1977), p. 203. «This prayer cannot be found in any of the early texts written by Francis. In its present form, it is probably not even a hundred years old. All the same, it clearly reflects the spirit of Francis. He could have written it, and that is why it is generally attributed to him» (p. 203). A slightly different version («Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace») can be found in Masterpieces of Religious Verse, ed. James Dalton Morrison, p. 130 (1948).

• There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No Heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it to-day. Take Heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!

  The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see; and to see, we have only to look. Contessina I beseech you to look.

  Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendour, woven of love, by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the Angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty: believe me, that angel’s hand is there; the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing Presence. Our joys, too: be not content with them as joys, they too conceal diviner gifts.

  Life is so full of meaning and of purpose, so full of beauty—beneath its covering—that you will find that earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage, then to claim it: that is all! But courage you have; and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.

  And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you; not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem, and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

  • «Fra Giovanni», A Letter to the Most Illustrious the Contessina Allagia Dela Aldobrandeschi, Written Christmas Eve Anno Domini 1513 (193?) The British Museum stated in 1970 that it had «proved impossible» to identify Fra Giovanni, the purported author of this letter. This was published, probably in the 1930s, «with Christmas Greetings» from Greville MacDonald, son of novelist George MacDonald, and Mary MacDonald.

• Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honourable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endure with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; Amen.
  • George L. Locke, prayer, c. 1880. President Franklin D. Roosevelt included it as «an old prayer» without attribution, in his final radio speech of the 1940 presidential campaign, November 4, 1940. The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940, p. 557–58 (1941). Life magazine reproduced the prayer in its issue of November 18, 1940, and in a letter to the editor in the December 9 issue, p. 4, the Rev. Mr. Locke’s daughter wrote about his authorship and the circumstances of his composing the prayer.

• Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory. Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee—and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge. Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail. Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past. And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength. Then, I, his father, will dare to whisper, «I have not lived in vain».
  • Douglas MacArthur, «A Father’s Prayer». Courtney Whitney, MacArthur, His Rendevous with History (1956), p. 547. Written «during the early days of the desperate campaigns in the Far East in World War II».

• Our earnest prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness, and peace to all our neighbors, and like blessings to all the peoples and powers of earth.
  • William McKinley, speech delivered at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, New York, September 5, 1901. Modern Eloquence, ed. Ashley H. Thorndike, rev. Adam Ward, vol. 11, p. 401 (1936). This was McKinley’s last speech, as he was mortally wounded the next day at the Exposition. He served in Congress 1877–1884 and 1885–1891.

• The things, good Lord, that I pray for, give me thy grace to labour for. Amen.
  • Thomas More, English Prayers and Treatise on the Holy Eucharist, ed. Philip E. Hallett, p. 20 (1938). His English works were published in 1557.

• God give me the serenity to accept things which cannot be changed;
  Give me courage to change things which must be changed;
  And the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.
  • Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, The A.A. Grapevine, January 1950, p. 6–7; also June Bingham, Courage to Change, p. iii (1961), where the version differs somewhat: «O God, give us serenity to accept what cannot be changed, courage to change what should be changed, and wisdom to distinguish the one from the other». Alcoholics Anonymous has used this prayer, with minor changes in wording, since about 1940. According to the first source, Dr. Niebuhr said, «It may have been spooking around for years, even centuries, but I don’t think so. I honestly do believe that I wrote it myself». The Anglican publishing house, Mobray of London, for more than a century has identified it as a General or Common Prayer of fourteenth-century England, according to a reader of American Notes and Queries, June 1970, p. 154. He added that «Reinhold Niebuhr has acknowledged, more than once, both in seminar and publicly that he was not the original author of the Serenity Prayer». In Ausblick von der Weibertreu by Christoph Duncker, p. 1 (1973), the following lines are attributed to a Johann Christoph Oetinger, deacon in Weinsberg from 1762 to 1769: «Gib mir Gelassenheit, Dinge hinzunehmen, die ich nicht ändern kann, Den Mut, Dinge zu ändern, die ich ändern kann, und die Weisheit, das eine vom andern zu untersheiden», which can be translated as above. Another reader of American Notes and Queries, October 1969, p. 25, gives a nearly identical quotation and states that it can be traced to Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702–1782), German theologian and theosophist, without giving a source. Whatever the original source or wording, Niebuhr and A.A. have made the prayer well-known in the United States.

• Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen.
  • James H. O’Neill, prayer for good weather, December 1944. Ladislas Farago, Patton, Ordeal and Triumph (1964), chapter 36, p. 690. General George S. Patton, Jr., ordered Colonel O’Neill, chaplain of the Third Army, to produce this prayer.
• Stars above our cornfields,
  Morning-colored wind,
  Snow, and wood-fires burning
  On hearths we leave behind.
  (Shine for us, dear beacons.)
  God of the hidden purpose,
  Let our embarking be
  The prayer of proud men asking
  Not to be safe, but free.
  • Henry Morton Robinson, «Litany for D-Day: 1944», stanzas 4 and 5, The Enchanted Grindstone and Other Poems (1952), p. 93.

• Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to another.
  • Robert Louis Stevenson, prayer «For Success», Vailima Papers and a Footnote to History (1925), p. 7. This was used by Adlai E. Stevenson on his Christmas card in 1962.

• I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean [i.e., comport] ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.
  • George Washington, circular to the states, Newburgh, New York, June 8, 1783. The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (1938), vol. 26, p. 496.

• I asked God for strength, that I might achieve
  I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey …
  I asked for health, that I might do greater things
  I was given infirmity, that I might do better things …
  I asked for riches, that I might be happy
  I was given poverty, that I might be wise …
  I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men
  I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God …
  I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life
  I was given life that I might enjoy all things …
  I got nothing that I asked for—but everything I had hoped for
  Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
  I am, among all men, most richly blessed.
  • Author unknown. As «A Creed for Those Who Have Suffered», this has been used by rehabilitation centers. Adlai E. Stevenson used these lines on his Christmas card, 1955.

• May the road rise to meet you.
  May the wind be ever at your back
  May the Good Lord keep you in the hollow of His hand.
  May your heart be as warm as your hearthstone.
  And when you come to die
  may the wail of the poor
  be the only sorrow
  you’ll leave behind.
  May God bless you always.
  • Author unknown, «An Irish Wish». Ralph L. Woods, A Third Treasury of the Familiar (1970), p. 644. Another version of this popular Irish blessing: May the road rise to meet you,
    May the wind be always at your back,
    May the sun shine warm upon your face,
    May the rain fall soft upon your fields,
    And, until we meet again,
    May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

• O God, thy sea is so great, and my boat is so small.
  • Author unknown. Prayer of Breton fishermen. President John F. Kennedy had on his desk a plaque with these words, given to him by Admiral Hyman Rickover, who gave one like it to the commanding officer of each new Polaris submarine. Tazewell Taylor Shepard, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Man of the Sea (1965), p. 23.
• Slow me down, Lord! Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind. Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time. Give me, amidst the confusion of my day, the calmness of the everlasting hills. Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles with the soothing music of singing streams that live in my memory. Teach me the art of taking minute vacations … of slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with a friend, to pat a dog, to read a few lines from a good book. Remind me each day of the fable of the hare and the tortoise, that I may know that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than measuring its speed. Let me look upward into the branches of the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well. Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life’s enduring values that I may grow toward the stars of my greater destiny.
  • Author unknown. Reported in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).

See also[edit]

• Amen
• Atonement
• Blessings
• Grace
• Higher self
• Inspiration
• Mantras
• Meditation
• Mindfulness
• Om
• Worship

External links[edit]

It can be pretty convicting when we think about our own prayer lives. We’re so busy that we only pray sometimes. We pray now and then. But God desires so much more for us when it comes to prayer. Through prayer, we can not only intercede for others, but we can know God intimately. Through prayer, we can make a difference in this world…and yet we often fail.

What is it about us that resists prayer? Even the apostle Paul recognized what a struggle prayer is when he noted in Romans 8:26, «We do not know what to pray for as we ought….» It’s amazing to think that the great Christian, Paul, struggled in his prayer life! And so do we! Which is why we cry out with the disciples, «Lord, teach us to pray.»

Jesus welcomes our questions. He wants us to pray…to come to him and ask him for what is on our hearts. But how should we pray? Jesus gives us a word about prayer in Matthew 6:5, where he says:

«And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.»

Now if Jesus tells us not to pray like hypocrites, it’s pretty important that we understand what a hypocrite is. The word hypocrite comes from the Greek theater, and was used to denote someone who was an actor. And in Greek theater, actors would put on a mask to play various parts in a play.

What Jesus is saying is pretty clear. When we pray and put on a performance…rather than genuinely pray…we’re simply playing a part. When we hide our true identity — our self-righteousness — behind our own prayers and stand at center stage, we are just playing a part, we are acting. We are just pretending to pray. And that is hypocrisy.

Jesus said don’t pray like the hypocrites because,

«…they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.»

There is nothing wrong with standing to pray. In fact, during those times, the Jewish people would often stand, lifting up holy hands in prayer to God. The posture is not the point here. Jesus is not condemning public prayer. The hypocrisy is that these men, who loved to stand and pray on the street corners and in the sanctuaries and the synagogues, did it to be seen by men.

That is the problem. There is the hypocrisy…to pray for the applause of men rather than the applause of God. Hypocrites are more interested in their own reputation than in personal righteousness. They desire the approval of men rather than the approval of God.

So Jesus rips off the mask of phoniness and says that when you and I pray, don’t pretend. Don’t just pray with words that mean nothing. Don’t pray to perform.

The only way I know how you and I can identify this in our lives is to ask ourselves, «Do I only pray when people are watching? Do I simply pray so others will think more of me or the best of me?»

Those of us who are called upon to pray publicly must be very careful that we don’t pray professional prayers. And the only way I know how to guard against this in my own life is to first engage the God of heaven through private and personal prayer. When I do that, then I am ready for public prayer.

So let me ask you, what’s your prayer life like? Really, what’s it like? Not just what men see, but what God sees. Is it truly your desire to draw near to God, to know him, to talk with him? So many Christians are all showcase and no warehouse. Everything’s out front, but there’s nothing on the inside. And that’s what Jesus is warning us about here. Don’t pretend to pray, but pray. And don’t pray to perform.