Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
John 16:24

When we commune with God in prayer, we long to know that He hears us. But even more than that is the excitement and joy that follows a confirmation that we heard HIM. Charles Spurgeon presents great wisdom about prayer in his book, Praying Successfully, wisdom that he gleaned from both scripture and his personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Praying Successfully Involves Learning How to Pray

First, in order for God to make you greatly useful, He must teach you how to pray. The man who is a great preacher and yet cannot pray will come to a bad end. A woman who is noted for her Bible teaching and yet cannot pray will also come to a bad end. If you can be great without prayer, your greatness will be your ruin. If God means to bless you greatly, He will make you pray greatly, as He did with David, who said while in the cave, ‘I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication’ (Psalm 142:1).

The person whom God will greatly honor must always believe in God, even when he is at his wit’s end. ‘When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path’ (v. 3). Are you never at your wit’s end? Then God has not sent you to do business in great waters. If He has, before long you will be in a great storm, staggering to and fro and at your wit’s end. Oh, it is easy to trust when you can trust yourself. But when you cannot trust yourself, when your spirit sinks below zero in the chill of utter despair, then it is time to trust in God. If that is your case, you have the marks of a believer who can lead God’s people and be a comforter to others.
Charles Spurgeon, Praying Successfully

Praying Successfully is Spurgeon’s challenge and call to hungry believers everywhere. Well known for his great love affair with the Lord, Spurgeon pierces and encourages by turn, but mostly he takes the reader to the love relationship with Jesus at the heart of answered prayer.