LIFE CHANGING PRAYER compiled by Debra Maffett

for which we may be never the worse. There is a simple, solid, pious
strain of prayer, in which the supplicant is so filled and occupied
with a sense of his own dependence, and of the importance of the
things for which he asks, and so persuaded of the power and grace of
God through Christ to give him those things — that while he is
engaged in it, he does not merely imagine, but feels assured that God
is near to him as a reconciled Father, so that every burden and doubt
are taken off from his mind. "He knows," as John expresses it, "that
he has the petition he desired of God," and he feels the truth of that
promise, "while they speak — I will hear." This is the perfection of
prayer.
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
unuttered or expressed;
The motion of a hidden fire,
that trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear;
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is nigh.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech,
The infant lips can try;
Prayer the sublimest strains that reach
The majesty on high.
Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air,
His watchwords at the gates of death;
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