"Prayers Do Not Die"

I have just begun to read E. M. Bounds on Prayer. Take time to consider the author's opening in book one, Purpose in Prayer. I have often thought about the brevity of our lives, compared to the eternal value of our prayer. Bounds makes these statements with great eloquence.

The prayers of God's saints are the capital stock in heaven by which Christ carries on His great work upon the earth. Great throes and mighty convulsions in the world have come about as angels move on more powerful, more rapid wings; and God's policy is shaped when the prayers of His people are more numerous and more efficient.
The most important lesson we can learn is how to pray. Indeed, we must pray so that our prayers take hold of God. The man who has done the most and the best praying is the most immortal, because prayers do not die. Perhaps the lips that uttered them are closed in death, or the heart that felt them may have ceased to beat, but the prayers live before God, and God's heart is set on them. Prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them -- outlive a generation, outlive an age, outlive a world. 1

E. M. Bounds on Prayer is a anthology of seven books on prayer. You can read the book online at Christian Ethereal Classics Library.

1 E. M. Bounds on Prayer, published in 1997 by Whitaker House, New Kensington, PA, p. 11