10 Quotes About Prayer That Will Help You Reconnect With God
Prayer plays a significant role in faith and our relationship with God, so much that it’s mentioned time and time again throughout scripture. 1 Thessalonians 5:7 encourages us to “pray without ceasing.” Philippians 4:6 advises us to quell our anxiety and “by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Jesus instructs us how to pray in Matthew 6.
So often, though, prayer can feel mysterious, confusing, or even useless. We wonder whether the times we set aside to talk to God make any difference at all. We feel burnt out and weary. We yearn to hear a voice answer us back.
But this doesn’t mean we should stop praying. Below, find ten quotes about prayer from deep thinkers that will reignite your desire to talk to God, mystery and all.
01 | George MacDonald
“What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need—the need of Himself?”
02 | St. Thérèse of Lisieux
“For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”
03 | C. S. Lewis
“I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.”
04 | Anne Lamott
“‘Help’ is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn’t matter how you pray—with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors.”
05 | Frederick Buechner
“Pray anyway. Who knows what God can do through your prayer?”
06 | Madeleine L’Engle
“To pray is to listen, to move through my own chattering to God, to that place where I can be silent and listen to what God may have to say.”
07 | Frederick Douglass
“I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”
08 | Julian of Norwich
“Pray, even if you feel nothing, see nothing. For when you are dry, empty, sick, or weak, at such a time is your prayer most pleasing to God, even though you may find little joy in it. This is true of all believing prayer.”
09 | Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education.”
10 | Mother Teresa
“Prayer makes your heart bigger, until it is capable of containing the gift of God himself.”