A Quote by Martin Luther

Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.

Martin Luther

Quote Topics

God His Hold Laying Overcoming Prayer Reluctance Willingness

Quote Author

Martin Luther
German - Leader
November 10, 1483 - February 18, 1546

Prayer is not getting man's will done in heaven, but getting God's will done on earth. It is not overcoming God's reluctance but laying hold of God's willingness.

Richard Chenevix Trench

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Prayer is not conquering God's reluctance, but taking hold of God's willingness.

Phillips Brooks

Prayer opens our lives for God so his will can be done in and through us, because in true prayer we habitually put ourselves into the attitude of willingness to do whatever God wills.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Prayer lays hold upon God and influences Him to work. This is the meaning of prayer as it concerns God. This is the doctrine of prayer, or else there is nothing whatever in prayer.

Edward McKendree Bounds

Prayer is not a means for us to persuade a reluctant God to do something which is against His better judgment. Prayer, rather is coming to God for the fulfillment of His will, coming to a God who delights to answer prayer.

John F Walvoord

Prayer lays hold of God's plan and becomes the link between His will and its accomplishment on earth. Amazing things happen, and we are given the privilege of being the channels of the Holy Spirit's prayer.

Elisabeth Elliot

Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer.

Oswald Chambers

The explanation is that prayer is not primarily God's way of getting things done. It is God's way of giving the church 'on the job training' in overcoming the forces hostile to God.

Paul Billheimer

Four things let us ever keep in mind: God hears prayer, God heeds prayer, God answers prayer, and God delivers by prayer.

Edward McKendree Bounds

The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God. One cannot pray unless he has faith in his own ability to accost the infinite, merciful, eternal God.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Spiritual lust--'I must have it at once'--causes me to demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God himself who gives the answer. Is today 'the third day' and He has still not done what I expected? Whenever we insist that God should give us an answer to prayer we are off track. The purpose of prayer is that we get a hold of God, not of the answer.

Oswald Chambers

That his prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of GOD, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but Divine love: and that when the appointed times of prayer were past, he found no difference, because he still continued with GOD, praising and blessing Him with all his might, so that he passed his life in continual joy; yet hoped that GOD would give him somewhat to suffer, when he should grow stronger.

Brother Lawrence

The Prophet introduced a system of prayer in that it was interwoven into man's daily work: a prayer in the morning when he arose from his bed; a prayer at lunch time, as an indication that if his body needed a diet, so did his spirit; a prayer in the afternoon when he retired from his daily work; a prayer at sunset and a prayer when going to bed.

Muhammad Ali

One of the most effective ways to pray is to ask God to give you a promise from his Word concerning whatever it is you're praying for. Then hold him to his Word as you pray it back to him. It's what has been called "reversed thunder." God keeps his Word, and basing our prayer on his Word gives our prayers strength and confidence because we know we're asking for something God wants to give us.

Anne Graham Lotz

Release your problem to God with a prayer that the answer will come in its own good time and place. Hold the attitude of faith and expectancy, knowing that God has all the answers, that His knowledge is limitless and can never be exhausted.