Quotable

The school of affliction teaches us to pray....Affliction causes men to pray more frequently. God's people are vessels full of the spirit of prayer, and God draws it out by affliction. Alas, it is sad to consider that in our peace and tranquillity, we pray carelessly by fits and starts many times...but affliction keeps us on our knees. He also teaches us in affliction to pray more fervently. Even Christ, being in agony, prayed more earnestly....When you call to mind your short, slight, cold, dead, sleepy, formal devotions, you will be ashamed of them and stir up your heart to take hold of God. For this very end, God sends his people into captivity that he may draw out the spirit of prayer which they have allowed to lie dead within them.

Thomas Case, When Christians Suffer