Making use of God

Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is
a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He
should be able to make use of us. It may be that one
of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too
much and listen too little. When prayer is at its
highest we wait in silence for God's voice to us;
we linger in His presence for His peace and His
power to flow over us and around us; we lean back
in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of
perfect security in Him.
- William Barclay (1907-1978), The Plain Man's
Book of Prayers