This is what some people have said about praying:
Our prayers must mean something to us if they are to mean anything to God. (M. D. Babcock)
Humbling ourselves in dust and ashes means gaining a sense of our meagreness and God’s greatness, our sin and His purity, our humanity and His divinity. There have been times when I haven’t always tasted dust and ashes in prayer, when I haven’t glimpsed heaven. Often my prayers have been more along the line of a neat and orderly arrangement of words around Adoration, Confession, etc. I’ve been guilty of being far too careful to follow a proper progression of praise and petition, my words all line up like ducks in a tidy row.
Do not reckon you have prayed unless you have pleaded, for pleading is the very marrow of prayer. (C.H. Spurgeon)
Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow the other to enter into the very centre of your person, to speak there, to touch the sensitive core of your being and allow the other to see so much that you would rather leave in darkness. (Henri Nouwen)
The love of God most high for our soul is so wonderful that it surpasses all knowledge. No created thing can know the greatness, the sweetness, the tenderness of the love that our Maker has for us. By his grace and help, therefore, let us, in spirit, stand and gaze, eternally marvelling at the supreme, surpassing, single-minded, incalculable love that God, who is goodness, has for us. Then we can ask reverently of our lover whatever we will. (Julian of Norwich)
It is right that confession and forgiveness should be followed by praise and thanksgiving - with all the joy of those freshly cleansed, to worship and serve Him. There is a rhythm to the Christian life in this pattern. Where sin is not taken seriously, the Christian misses the liberating joy and blessing of sins confessed, sins forgiven and has a more monochrome Christian existence. He misses the depth of heartfelt praise expressed in so many hymns, for it is the person. who is forgiven much who loves much, the person who sees the depth of the mercy of God who is constantly inspired in praise. (Michael Baughen)
It is painful to come before God, just as we are, in all our poverty and nakedness; and the nearer we get to God, the more we are aware of it. It is the easiest and the hardest thing to do
- just to remain there with all our deficiencies and hangups, and not to pretend to be the good pious people we would like to be, but rather accepting the people we actually are. (Elizabeth Obbard)
There can be no real prayer without self-examination. And self-examination is difficult, exhausting and, above all, shaming and humiliating. Many of us spend life running away from ourselves rather than facing ourselves. One of the great reasons why our prayers are not what they should be is that so few people will face the stern discipline of self-examination in the presence of God on which prayer is based. (William. Barclay)