Why pray?

I’m not a natural prayer guy. I came to a life of prayer thru crisis. And even after God has shown me how much he loves to dialogue with me, I still struggle with being a human being in conversation with someone who’s invisible. And I struggle to find the hour or so every day that we need to do it right.

Fortunately, I’m not alone. If you struggle with prayer, join the human race. Here are some great quotes on it from a few spiritual giants who have learned a thing or two:

“We can never expect to grow in the likeness of our Lord unless we follow His example and give more time to communion with the Father. A revival of real praying would produce a spiritual revolution.”

-E.M. Bounds

“The true church lives and moves and has its being in prayer.”

– Leonard Ravenhill

“Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, the third thing necessary to a minister. Pray, then, my dear brother; pray, pray, pray.”

– Edward Payson

“Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life.”

– Oswald Chambers

“The prayer of the feeblest saint who lives in the Spirit and keeps right with God is a terror to Satan. The very powers of darkness are paralyzed by prayer; no spiritualistic seance can succeed in the presence of a humble praying saint. No wonder Satan tries to keep our minds fussy in active work till we cannot think in prayer.”

– Oswald Chambers

“The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”

– Samuel Chadwick

“Prayer is my chief work, and it is by means of it that I carry on the rest.”

– Thomas Hooker, Puritan

“We think of prayer as a preparation for work, or a calm after having done work, whereas prayer is the essential work. It is the supreme activity of everything that is noblest in our personality.”

– Oswald Chambers

“Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God’s work and is powerless to project God’s cause in this world.”

– E. M. Bounds

“When the devil sees a man or woman who really believes in prayer, who knows how to pray, and who really does pray, and, above all, when he sees a whole church on its face before God in prayer, ‘he trembles’ as much as he ever did, for he knows that his day in that church or community is at an end.”

– R.A. Torrey

“No man can do a great and enduring work for God who is not a man of prayer, and no man can be a man of prayer who does not give much time to praying.”

– E. M. Bounds, Power through Prayer

“Little prayer, little power. Much prayer, much power.”

– South Korean pastor