Two prayers once went up to heaven together. One was a blundering prayer, awkward and poorly shaped. This prayer did not even ask for the right things. If God had granted it just as it was prayed, the one who prayed it would have suffered all manner of evil. But it was an earnest, loving prayer, and the heart of the one who prayed it really wanted God to do with her just what was best.
The second prayer that went up with this first was a perfectly correct and smooth prayer. The words were all right, and the things asked for were all right, and no fault could be found with the shape of it. And yet the prayer came from a cold heart, and no love went into the making of it. So when these prayers came up together to God, which one do you think, children, he accepted and gave an answer to?
At another time two more prayers ascended together to the Father. One was a long prayer and a very beautiful one. Every sentence was eloquent, and it sounded almost like a noble poem. And yet the man who prayed the prayer put nothing but brains into it, and was thinking while he prayed not of the Father to whom people thought he was praying, but of the people who were listening.
At that same meeting, and almost at the same time, a short and stammering prayer was prayed. The sentences were ungrammatical, and scarcely one of them was even complete. But the prayer came from a true and tender spirit, one very humble and trusting, anxious to do everything to please her Savior, willing to pray even a stammering prayer right after such an eloquent one. Now as these two prayers went up together to heaven, which do you think received a welcome there?
Every night, at just the same time, from a little house I know of, two prayers of two sisters go up together to God’s throne. They never fail, either of them, and they are about of the same length, and they have almost the same words in them, and in the same order. But one of them is mumbled carelessly, and the girl is not thinking of what she is saying, but is remembering some event of the day or planning some pleasure for the morrow.
Her sister’s prayer is almost the same so far as the words go, yet it is earnest and thoughtful, and she knows what she is saying, and means every word of it. Which of these prayers does the Father hear? Here are six prayers, boys and girls. Which of them are yours?