Prayer

“…I must learn about prayer. Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle around the same two themes: why God doesn’t act the way we want God to, and why I don’t act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge.”

Gathering my thoughts on this book has been hard, and it has taken me a few months to get around to writing this post. Finally, I will do so today!!

(I wrote that twelve days ago.)

A year ago, I heard a Christian apologist give a talk on the question, “Where is God in suffering?” Something he acknowledged is that human suffering is both a deeply theological and deeply personal issue. There are answers in the Bible to the problem of pain, but when and where there is real suffering, people cry out: “Where is God?”

I mention this because Yancey similarly handles this book on prayer in both a theological and personal way. We do find abundant truth about prayer in the Bible, but still the believer who has prayed and prayed the same unanswered prayer for years asks: “Where is God?” Other questions follow. “Why pray if God already knows everything? Do my prayers change the will of God? (For that matter, should they?) What is the right way to pray, and what are the right things to pray for?”

Alongside a thorough examination of what the Bible teaches about “the very heartbeat of our relationship with God,” Yancey includes a multitude of anecdotes, stories, and testimonies through which he explores the human experience with prayer. I most loved the first section of the book, entitled “Keeping Company with God.” Here, essential truths from the Word of God and wisdom from other Christian men and women are brought together with humility and honesty.

And the answer to our question, “Where is God?”? To the one suffering from the recent death of his mother, the one praying for the salvation of her country, and myself when I have doubts: I can say that He is there. Of this we must have faith.