A Sense of Need

No one will make a request unless a sense of need has already wakened the desire to make that request.

• Prayer begins with a sense of need.
• It begins with the conviction that we cannot deal with life ourselves.
• It begins with the sense of our own inadequacy.
• It begins in the sense of human weakness.
• That sense of human weakness is the basis of all human approach to God.
• Prayer begins with the realization of the helplessness of manhood.

(William Barclay, The Letters to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, p. 65-66) 13/Feb/2011 8:01