Mysteries of Prayer

I just finished reading Prayer by Philip Yancey.  I know that my prayer life is not what I’d like it to be so I wanted to see if I got any insights from this book..  I highly recommend it because I really liked the ideas presented here.  I’m borrowing a format one of my friends uses often to share some of my favorite parts here.

Great Question:  “Why Pray?”

Great Answer:  “If I had to answer the question ‘Why pray?’ in one sentence, it would be, ‘Because Jesus did.’  He bridged the chasm between God and human beings.  While on earth he became vulnerable, as we are vulnerable; rejected, as we are rejected; and tested, as we are tested.  In every case his response was prayer.”

Best Analogy:  “I accept Jesus’ assurance that his departure from earth represents progress, by opening a door for the Counselor to enter.  We know how counselors work: not by giving orders and imposing changes through external force.  A good counselor works on the inside, bringing to the surface dormant health.  For a relationship between such unequal partners, prayer provides an ideal medium.

            Prayer is cooperation with God, a consent that opens the way for grace to work.  Most of the time the Counselor communicates subtly:  feeding ideas into my mind, bringing to awareness a caustic comment I just made, inspiring me to choose better than I would have done otherwise, shedding light on the hidden dangers of temptation, sensitizing me to another’s needs.”

Funniest description:  Teresa of Avila, a great pray-er from the Middle Ages, determining to pray until the hourglass runs out, then shaking it to make the sand run faster. (Haven’t we all felt this way?)

Most thought provoking:  The idea that even Jesus had prayers that were not answered.  He prayed for “this cup to pass,” and yet it did not.  He prayed for his disciples to be one as He and the Father are one.  Unity is still eluding the Church today.

Favorite Quote:  “Prayer and only prayer, restores my vision to one that more resembles God’s.  I awake from blindness to see that wealth lurks as a terrible danger, not a goal worth striving for; that value depends not on race or status but on the image of God every person bears; that no amount of effort to improve the physical beauty has much relevance for the world beyond.”

Most Challenging to me personally:  “Mystery, awareness of another world, an emphasis on being rather than doing, even a few moments of quiet do not come naturally to me in this hectic buzzing world.  I must carve out time and allow God to nourish my inner life…(quoting Tugwell) God is inviting us to take a break, to play truant.  We can stop doing all those important things we have to do in our capacity as God, and leave it to him to be God.

Resonates with me:   “I wonder if prayer is a pious form of talking to myself.”

Best explanation of our attitude in prayer:  “Somehow we must offer our prayers with a humility that conveys gratitude without triumphalism, and compassion without manipulation, always respecting the mystery surrounding prayer.”

Best “What If?” Statement:  “What about Islamist radicals who now oppose the West with violence?  What effect might it have if every Christian church adopted the name of one Al-Qaeda member and prayed faithfully for that person?”

Best Explanation of my Goal on Facebook:  "In medieval times, and still today in monasteries, the chiming of a church bell would cause all who heard it to stop and say the prescribed prayer.  It forced them to remember God.  Living in a place where church bells do not ring, I must make a deliberate effort to remember.”  (I hope my posts lead my friends to stop and pray, especially for things that they would not normally think to pray about.)