How often do I come to God not with consumer requests, but simply with a desire to spend time with him, to discern what he wants from me and not vice versa?  When I do that, I mysteriously find that the answer to my prayers for guidance is around me all along.  Nothing changes but my receptors; through prayer, I open them to God.  “For all things singe you,” wrote the poet Rilke, “at times we just hear them more clearly.” 

Some have called meditative prayer a useless act, because we do it not for the sake of getting something, but spontaneously, as uselessly as a child at play.  After an extended time with God my urgent requests, which had seemed so significant, take on a new light.  I begin to ask for them for God’s sake, not my own.  Though my needs may drive me to prayer, it is there I come face to face with my greatest need: an encounter with God himself. - (Philip Yancey, Christianity Today, March 2006)
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There is no effort comparable to prayer to God. In fact, whenever you want to pray, hostile demons try to interrupt you. Of course they know that nothing but prayer to God entangles them. Certainly when you undertake any other good work, and persevere in it, you obtain rest. But prayer is a battle all the way to the last breath. - Agathon

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Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.  Tend the sick, Lord Christ, give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous - and all for your love’s sake.  Amen. (Attributed to Augustine)

I am placing my soul and my body in your safe keeping this night, O God, in your safe keeping, O Jesus Christ, in your safe keeping, O Spirit of perfect truth.  The Three who would defend my cause by keeping me this night from harm.  (Celtic Daily Prayer, from the Northumbrian Community)

Christ with me sleeping, Christ with me waking, Christ with me watching, every day and night, every day and night.  (Celtic Prayer, from Carmina Gadelica)

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Bear up the hands that hang down, by faith and prayer; support the tottering knees. Have you any days of fasting and prayer? Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down. 
John Wesley, Wesley Centre

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You asked for my hands that you might use them for your purpose,
I gave them for a moment, then withdrew them for the work was hard.
You asked for my mouth to speak out against injustice.
I gave you a whisper that I might not be accused.
You asked for my life that you might work through me.
I gave a small part that I might not get too involved.
Lord, forgive my calculated efforts to serve you
only when it is convenient for me to do so,
only in those places where it is safe to do so,
and only in those who make it easy to do so.
Lord, forgive me, renew me, heal me, nurture me,
empower me; send me out as an instrument
of your peace that I might take seriously the
meaning of servant-leadership.  Amen.

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“When we fail to wait prayerfully for God’s guidance and strength, we are saying with our actions if not our lips, that we do not need him.” (Charles Hummel)

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