Prayer has always something that has been at the back of my mind. Why Pray? Does God answer prayer? when I pray in front of others and my prayers don't get answered, how is that a testimony of the powerful God I claim to serve? How do you pray with faith if prayer might not get answered? I think alot of Christians have asked this question but never really gotten a satisfactory answer. I think this book helps address some of the key questions, helps put things in perspective, highlights certain idea. I think ultimately we have to see prayer as conversation with God, and not like rubbing the genie.
Another video that shows Philip Yancey talking about this book
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsqwVMuJhXY&feature=&p=C0174A10DF4890F1&index=0&playnext=1
When you boil prayer done, its remembering who God is.
Instead of starting with me, I start with who God is.
Keeping company with God.
The more I research, the more I'm convinced that things happen on earth that wouldn't have happen otherwise except for prayer.
Contents:
Part one:
Keeping Company with God
1. Our Deepest Longing
- a universal cry. every faith has some form of prayer. we pray because we want to thank someone or something for the beauties and glories of life, and also because we feel small and helpless and sometimes afraid. Prayer is an expression of who we we are.. we are a living incompleteness.
- a modern struggle
2. View from Above
- When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him? asked the psalmist. Prayer helps correct myopia, calling to mind a perspective I daily forget. Be still and know that I am God.
- we live in a broken planet, it takes effort to remember who we are, God's creation and faith to imagine that we someday will be, God's triumph. Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God's point of view.
3. Just as We Are
- guilty, helpless, humble, doubting,honest,exposed,
- The most important purpose of prayer may be to let our true selves be loved by God. My image of God, more than anything else, determines my degree of honesty isn prayer.
4. The God Who Is
prayer that focuses on God, meditative prayer, can serve as a kind of self forgetfulness.
an encounter with God's own self.
5. Coming Together.
prayer is coming together with God in friendship, passionate alliance.
friend like Moses, Jeremiah whined, Job was complaining to the point of irreverence. Jesus prayed with loud cries and tears
Part 2:
Unravelling the Mysteries
6. Why Pray
7. Wrestling Match
8. Partnership
9. What difference does it make
10. Does Prayer change God?
11. Ask, Seek, Konock
Part 3: The Language of Prayer.
12. Yearning for Fluency
13. Prayer Grammar
14. Tongue Tied
15. The Sound of Silence
Part 4: Prayer Dilemmas
16. Unanswered Prayer: whose fault?
- some prayers go unanswered because frivolous. e.g. praying not to get caught when you done a crime
- flaw in the person. in addition to our private spiritual state, our social concern also have direct bearing. apostle john; we receive from Him anything because we obey his commandments and do what pleases Him.
- contradictory prayers: eleven people pray for one job.
- the blessing of unanswered prayers, by answering every possible prayer, God would in effect abdicate and turn the world over to us to run and history shows how we have abused the limited power that we have. bruce almighty. some of greatest gifts is unanswered prayer.
- no fixed formula
17. Unanswered Prayer: living with the mystery
- the bible records many unanswered prayers. even Jesus prayer for this cup to be taken away from Him was not answered.
- For prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted. And if an infinitely wise Being listens to the requests of finite and foolish creatures, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them. Invariable “success” in prayer would not prove the Christian doctrine at all. It would prove something much more like magic—a power in certain human beings to control, or compel, the course of nature. ( C.S Lewis).
- sweeping promises come with qualifications. only when one who works in close partnership with God grows in ability to discern what God wants to accomplish on earth and prays accordingly.
- Time to wait, He makes all things beautiful in His time. one day all will be well.
- God can make use of whatever that happens for His glory.side benefit. surprising factor.
- sometimes, an unanswered prayer opens the door to something far better. Mary and her virgin birth for e.g, If you wan tto see God smile, tell Him your plans.. goes an old saying
- In answering prayer, God often relies on human agents.
- In the end, unanswered prayer brings me face to face with the mystery that silenced Paul: the profound difference between my prospective and God. Romans.
18. Prayer and Physical Healing
- the inbuilt miracle of our bodies. mind regulates the natural healing nature of our bodies.
take time to be quiet, praise God, be of gratitude.
- there are natural laws. nobody ask farmers to go plant in the middle of desert and pray for God to let his crops grow.
- checklist for healing. ask yourself a serious of questions when you're praying for healing
>Am i expecting a miracle as an entitlement
>Am i using the benefit of God's common grace, the healing built into our bodies and the medical knowledge we have gained?
>Do i wrongly blame God for the suffering?
>Am i prepared for the possibility that healing may not take place?
19. What to Pray For
- our heart desires
- our lamentations/complaints
- our confessions
- for peace amidst the confusion of what to pray for. The spirit intercedes for us when we don't know how.
- God's presence
- Compassion
- Gratitude
- Faith- both child like ( bold, expecting something in the future) and fidelity ( hang on at all cost).
- Grace- to not bear grudges, to live today.
Part 5: The Practice of Prayer
20. Prayer and me.
-prayer as physical therapy, a benefit of abiding in the vine
- a clear vision of God removes fear.
- prayer as a place to deposit my anxieties
- stopping time to prayer reminds us we are on God's schedule. now is the intersection between eternity and time. we are God's messengers, everyday is not a random string of events but playing out the will of another kingdom.
21. Prayer and others
- Praying for others helps us see people as God sees them. to see the bad as redeemable, a tragedy as an opportunity. helps me receive God's love to love others.
- Prayer enterst the pool of God's love and widen outwards
- Pray for your enemies and leader.
22. Prayer and God.
Prayer is becoming more aware of God who is already always present.
Prayer is keeping company with God through the day, thats how you pray without ceasing.
Prayer is giving credit where credit is due, something spontaneous in the face of greatness.
the whole bible chronicles God's effort to restore what was lost in the garden when Adam hid from God and stopped conversing as a friend. some prayers go unanswered, God's presence flow and ebb, more often mystery than resolution. but believe like paul that what we know in part, then we shall know full even as we are fully known. that the great restoration would come as described in revelations.
author ' sometimes i think about face to face conversations with God. I have so many unresolved questions , so many laments and regrets where should i begin? various openings play in my mind, until I remember with a start whom I will be talking to, the one who spun out galaxies and created all that exists. objections fade, doubts dissolve , and then i imagine falling back on words akin to Job' Oh, now i get it' and the conversation resumes.'
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