Priceless Gems on Prayer
I love to collect seashells. I don't know why. We bring them home and pile them in old styrofoam coolers where they serve as nesting spaces for spiders. Nonetheless, I go to the beach, walk a bit, and before I know it, I'm gathering shells that simply seem to cry out for me to have them.
This afternoon I decided to collect some articles online that talk about prayer. I hope you enjoy reading them. Just click on the titles to go straight to the articles.
Great Things Happen When You Pray
by Norman Vincent Peale
Here are some of his quotable bits:
Often a person will complain, “I’ve prayed and prayed and didn’t get what I wanted.” Well who said you are supposed to get what you want? Prayer isn’t a device to get what you want.
Prayer is a means of bringing you to the point where you will accept what God wants. If you’re using prayer just for getting what you want, your engaging in an improper use of prayer.
To live a full and happy life is to learn to say, “This is what I’d like to have Lord, if You think it’s all right for me. But if You don’t, then give me what You want me to have or show me what You want me to do.”
Does Prayer Change Things?
by Ligonier Ministries
This article answers this question: "If God already knows what is going to happen and, indeed, if He has already determined what will happen, what is the point of praying at all?"
Quotable bits:
...although prayer does not actually change God’s mind, prayer does change things. “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16). We do not know God’s eternal, sovereign plan in all its details, but we do know that He works through prayer and answers prayer. We know that as we pray according to His will, He says yes to our requests. Through our prayers, God accomplishes His purposes.
Prayer is the Most You Can Do
by Joey Zorinsanga
Quotable bits:
Prayer wasn’t a religious to-do checklist for Jesus. For him prayer was like breathing.
n times of trouble, I’ve often heard people say: “The least we can do is pray.” I have probably said it too. But as a pastor once said: prayer is not the least we can do, but the most we can do. What does prayer do? Prayer tears down our self-reliance, and increases our reliance and confidence on God. As Martin Luther (the reformer) said:
“None can believe how powerful prayer is, and what it is able to effect, but those who have learned it by experience. It is a great matter when in extreme need to take hold on prayer.”
And he went on to say,
“I know, whenever I have prayed earnestly, that I have been amply heard, and have obtained more than I prayed for. God indeed sometimes delayed, but at last He came.”
I've been praying for an hour a day this summer. Won't you join me? It will be exciting to see just what might happen when we do!
