Prayer-liners [v]

some more challenges from ‘Prayer: Does it make any difference?’ by Philip Yancey and you really should get the book:

‘I remembered reading the account of a spiritual seeker who interrupted a busy life to spend a few days in a monastery. ‘I hope your stay is a blessed one,’ said the monk who showed the visitor to his cell. ‘If you need anything, let us know, and we’ll teach you how to live without it.’

We learn to pray by praying, and two concentrated hours a day taught me much. To begin, I need to think more about God than about myself when I am praying. Even the Lord’s Prayer centers first in what God wants from us. ‘Hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done’ – God wants us to desire these things, to orient our lives around them.’ [pg. 45]

‘The main purpose of prayer is not to make life easier, nor to gain magical powers, but to know God. I need God more than anything I might get from God.’ [pg. 47]

‘In a telling comment Jesus also said, ‘Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.’ He could not mean that prayer is unnecessary, for His own life belied that. He could only mean that we need not strive to convince God to care; the Father already cares, more than we can know. Prayer is not a matter of giving God new information. Instead of presenting requests as if God may not know them, it might be more appropriate to say, ‘God, you know I need this!’

And that is how Tim Stafford found a sort of resolution to his questions about prayer:

Here, I believe, is the key to understanding what is most personal in prayer. We do not pray to tell God what He does not know, nor to remind Him of things He has forgotten. He already cares for the things we pray about… He has simply been waiting for us to care about them with Him.’ [pg. 50]

to be taken to the start of this series, click here.

Prayer-liners [iv]

more standing out passages and ideas from ‘Prayer: Does it make any difference?’ by Philip Yancey:

‘David Ford, a professor at Cambridge, asked a Catholic priest the most common problem he encountered in twenty years of hearing confession. With no hesitation the priest replied, ‘God.’ Very few of the parishioners he meets in confession behave as if God is a God of love, forgiveness, gentleness and compassion. They see God as someone to cower before, not as someone like Jesus, worthy of our trust. Ford comments, “This is perhaps the hardest truth of any to grasp. Do we wake up every morning amazed that we are loved by God? Do we allow our day to be shaped by God’s desire to relate to us?”

Reading Ford’s questions, I realise that my image of God, more than anything else, determines my degree of honesty in prayer. Do I trust God with my naked self? Foolishly, I hide myself in fear that God will be displeased, though in fact the hiding may be what displeases God most. From my side, the wall seems like self-protection; from God’s side it looks like lack of trust.’ [pg 34]

for the next thoughts on prayer, click here…

Prayer-liners [iii]

some more quotes from ‘Prayer: Does it make any difference?’ by Philip Yancey, which i am really enjoying at the moment:

‘In Jesus’ day tax collectors, prostitutes and unclean persons reached out their hands to receive God’s grace while religious professionals closed theirs into tight fists. In receiving a free gift, having open hands is the only requirement.’ [pg. 23]

‘Most parents feel a pang when the child outgrows dependence, even while knowing the growth to be healthy and normal. With God, the rules change. I never outgrow dependence, and to the extent I think I do, I delude myself. Asking for help lies at the root of prayer: the Lord’s Prayer itself consists of a string of such requests. Prayer is a declaration of dependence upon God.

A character in one of Henry Adam’s novels cries out in frustration, “Why must the church always appeal to my weakness and never to my strength!” I can think of several reasons. In a world that glorifies success, an admission of weakness disarms pride at the same time that it prepares us to receive grace. Meanwhile, the very weakness that drives us to pray becomes an invitation for God to respond with compassion and power.’ [pg. 27]

‘We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us,’ wrote C.S.Lewis. To put it another way, we must trust God with what God already knows.’ [pg. 32]

for more thoughts from Philip Yancey on prayer, click here.

Prayer-liners [ii]

some more quotes from ‘Prayer: Does it make any difference?’ by Philip Yancey, which you really should read:

‘Be still and know that I am God’: the Latin imperative for ‘be still’ is vacate. As Simon Tugwell explains, ‘God invites us to take a holiday [vacation], to stop being God for a while, and let Him be God.’ Too often we think of prayer as a serious chore, something that must be scheduled around other appointments, shoe-horned in among other pressing activities. We miss the point, says 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.’ [pg. 19]

‘Why pray? I have asked this question almost every day of my Christian life, especially when God’s presence seems faraway and I wonder if prayer is a pious form of talking to myself. I have asked it when I read theology, wondering what use there may be in repeating what God must surely know. My conclusions will unfold only gradually, but I begin here because prayer has become for me much more than a shopping list of requests to present to God. It has become a re-alignment of everything, I pray to restore the truth of the universe, to gain a glimpse of the world, and of me, through the eyes of God. In prayer I shift my point of view away from my own selfishness. I climb above the timber line and look down at the speck that is myself. I gaze at the stars and recall what role I or any of us play in a universe beyond comprehension. Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God’s point of view.’ [pg. 21]

for more thoughts on prayer, click here.

Prayer-liners [i]

i have just started reading ‘Prayer: Does it make any difference?’ by Philip Yancey which was given to me by two great friends Emiel and Philippa a while back and which i just started reading at the right time… still early days but REALLY enjoying it and highly recommend it [and it is not ‘the ten steps to really great prayer’ at all]

and while you should read the book, until you do, i thort i’d share some lines or thoughts that really stood out, from time to time as i continue to read it…

‘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.’ [pg. 9]

‘Prayer helps correct myopia, calling to mind a perspective I daily forget. I keep reversing roles, thinking of ways in which God should serve me, rather than vice versa. As God fiercely reminded Job, the Lord of the universe has many things to manage, and in the midst of my self-pity I would do well to contemplate for a moment God’s own point of view.’ [pg. 14]

for more thoughts on prayer, click here.