Ole Hallesby Prayer Quotes

As white snowflakes fall quietly and thickly on a winter day, answers to prayer will settle down upon you at every step you take, even to your dying day. The story of your life will be the story of prayer and answers to prayer.

To pray is nothing more involved than to let Jesus into our needs. To pray is to give Jesus permission to employ His powers in the alleviation of our distress. To pray is to let Jesus glorify His name in the midst of our needs.

Christ spent His last strength and His last moments in prayer for His enemies.

The future of the Christian work which is now being carried on with such great intensity does not depend upon curtailment or re-organization. It depends upon whether the Spirit of God can persuade us to take up the work of prayer.

Our lives should be, according to our Lord's plans, quiet but steadily flowing streams of blessing, which through our prayers and intercession should reach our whole environment.

The secret prayer chamber is a bloody battleground. Here violent and decisive battles are fought out. Here the fate of souls for time and eternity is determined, in quietude and solitude.

We experience wonderful peace and security by leaving our difficulties, both great and small, with Him, who is not only solicitous for our welfare but who also understands what is best for us.

The work of praying is prerequisite to all other work in the kingdom of God, for the simple reason that it is by prayer that we couple the powers of heaven to our helplessness, the powers which can turn water into wine and remove mountains in our own life and in the lives of others, the powers which can awaken those who sleep in sin and raise up the dead, the powers which can capture strongholds and make the impossible possible.

To pray is to let Jesus come into our hearts.

To pray is to let Jesus into our lives.

Prayer is a fine, delicate instrument. To use it right is a great art, a holy art. There is perhaps no greater art than the art of prayer.

TO PRAY IS TO LET JESUS INTO OUR LIVES. HE KNOCKS AND SEEKS ADMITTANCE, NOT ONLY IN THE SOLEMN HOURS OF SECRET PRAYER; HE KNOCKS IN THE MIDST OF YOUR DAILY WORK, YOUR DAILY STRUGGLES, YOUR DAILY “GRIND.” THAT IS WHERE YOU NEED HIM THE MOST. Ole Hallesby (1879-1961)

It often happens that we slip out of this blessed attitude of helplessness before God. Our former self-conceit and self-sufficiency reassert themselves. The result is that we fail again to grasp the meaning of helplessness. Once more it fills us with anxiety and perplexity. Everything becomes snarled again. We are not certain of the forgiveness of sins. The peace of God disappears from our lives. Worldliness, slothfulness and lack of spiritual interest begin to choke our spiritual lives. Sin gains the victory again in our daily lives, and an unwilling spirit works its way into the service we render toward God, This continues until God again can make us humble and contrite of heart and we again become reconciled to being helpless sinners, who can do nothing but this one thing: to permit the infinite God to have mercy on us, to love us and care for us. Then our helplessness reestablishes us in our right relationship both to God and to man. Above all it restores us to the right attitude in prayer.

However, certain requirements must also be met if the art of prayer is to be acquired. In the main they are two: practice and perseverance. Without practice no Christian will become a real man or woman of prayer. And practice cannot be attained without perseverance

From time immemorial prayer has been spoken of as the breath of the soul.