Bill Hybels
American author, speaker, and the founding and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.
How do you pray a prayer so filled with faith that it can move a mountain? By shifting your focus from the size of your mountain to the sufficiency of the Mountain Mover and then stepping forward in obedience.
If the request is wrong, God says, "No." If the timing is wrong, God says, "Slow." If you are wrong, God says, "Grow." But if the request is right, the timing is right and you are right, God says, "Go!"
There are two main principles I've picked up over the years as they pertain to cultivating the type of faith that moves mountains. The first is this: Faith comes by looking at God, not at the mountain. The second is this: God gives us faith as we walk by his side.
Sensing the carelessness and one-sidedness of our prayers, we start to feel guilty about praying. Guilt leads to faint-heartedness and that in turn leads to prayerlessness.
If Christ's followers aren't growing, it is because they are not making a habit of evaluating their lives. They don't step back and ask, "What's working and what's not working?"
We can have no deep, ongoing fellowship with God unless we obey him - totally.
When we make a habit of prayer, we stay constantly tuned to God's presence and open to receive his blessings.
Busyness is the unrivaled archenemy of spiritual authenticity.
If your ear is open to the afflicted, God will keep his ear open to you.
Adoration in prayer purges our spirit and prepares us to listen to God.
When Jesus prayed the model prayer we call the Lord's Prayer, his first requests were that God's name be shown reverence, that his kingdom come, that his will be done.
Out-of-balance praying leads to no praying at all!
The heart and soul of the Christian life is learning to hear God's voice and then developing the courage to do what he asks us to do.
Adoration in prayer reminds us of God's identity and inclination. As we list his attributes, lifting up his character and personality, we reinforce our understanding of who he is.
Our prayers can be more than empty wishes, vain hopes or feeble aspirations – but only when they are prayed from faith-filled hearts.
Supplications are requests that you make of God. And truly, nothing is too big for God to handle or too small for him to be interested in.
Prayer is a bridge from despair to hope.
Be wary of insisting that you know better than God about when a prayer request should be granted. God's delays are not necessarily denials. He always has reasons for his 'not yets.'
The reality is that our God is good. It's in his nature to be good; it's who he is--a giving God, a blessing God, an encouraging God, a nurturing God, an empowering God, a loving God. This is the God who willingly waits for your call.
I can write about prayer, you can read about prayer...but sooner or later you have to fall to your knees and just plain pray. Then, and only then, will you begin to operate in the vein of God's miracle-working ways.