reflections on prayer

I had a habit growing up of taking notes on books and then never reading them again. To counter this (I think), I started leaving notes within the books, writing them on pages crammed in the covers or scribbled in the margins. Something huge is about to happen in my life regarding discipline, and my best friends and I are beginning to really dig into the need for prayer, so I offer these reflections on prayer from FreshWind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala, copied by me years and years ago. Have they shaped me at all?

"The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer." Charles Spurgeon

"God likes to see His people shut up in this, that there is no hope but in prayer. Herein lies the church's power against the world." Andrew Boner, 1853

"The greatest answer to prayer is more prayer." Samuel Chadwick

"If I say ' I ought to pray' I will soon run out of motivation and quit, the flesh is too strong. I must be driven to pray." Jim Cymbala

"The best style of prayer is that which cannot be called anything by a cry." Spurgeon


Wow...what if we prayed expecting things to happen?