Power Through Prayer by E.M. Bounds

The preaching is but a voice. The voice in silence dies, the text is forgotten, the sermon fades from memory; the preacher lives.

The man makes the preacher. God must make the man. The messenger is, if possible, more than the message. The preacher is more than the sermon.

The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer.

Men of God, before anything else, are indispensable to the furtherance of the kingdom of God on earth.

Should Sorrow lay her hand upon thy shoulder,
And walk with thee in silence on life’s way,
While joy, thy bright companion once, grows colder,
Becomes more distant day by day;
Shrink not from the companionship of Sorrow,…

Lack of spiritual desire should grieve us and lead us to lament its absence, to seek earnestly for its bestowal, so that our praying, henceforth, should be an expression of the soul's sincere desire.