Length of Prayer

Not length but strength is desirable. A sense of need is a mighty teacher of brevity. If
our prayers had less of the tail feathers of pride and more wing they would be all the
better. Verbiage is to devotion as chaff to the wheat.

A brother would fix himself against the table-pew, and pray for twenty minutes or
half-an-hour, and then conclude by asking forgiveness for his short-comings,—a
petition which was hardly sanctioned by those who had undergone the penance of
endeavouring to join in his long-winded discourse. A good cure for this evil is for the
minister judiciously to admonish the brother to study brevity; and if this avail not, to
jog his elbow when the people are getting weary.

I hear of people praying for an hour together. I am very pleased that they can; but
it is seldom that I can do so, and I see no need for it. It is like a person going into a
bank with a cheque, and stopping an hour. The clerks would wonder. The common-
sense way is to go to the counter and show your cheque, and take your money, and go
about your business. There is a style of prayer which is of this fine practical
character. You so believe in God that you present the promise, obtain the blessing,
and go about your Master’s business. Sometimes a flood of words only means
excusing unbelief. The prayers of the Bible are nearly all short ones: they are short
and strong.

The great matter is not how long you pray, but how earnestly you pray. Consider the
life of the prayer rather than the length of the prayer. If your prayer reaches to
heaven it is long enough.