On Prayer

Concerning prayer: "I try to err on the side of honesty and not pretense." (Philip Yancey)

Not much of length or strength here, but some musings as I peruse the master-writer, Philip Yancey, and his 2002 book on prayer.

"When it comes to prayer," he says, "we are all beginners."

He discovers we value prayer highly but practice it little.

   
And he sees how prayer is tied to need. "I noticed that Christians in developing countries spend less time pondering the effectiveness of praying and more time actually praying." Need trumps talk.

He admits an imbalance in approach, a reaction to an approach that "promised too much and pondered too little." As a result, he tries "to err on the side of honesty and not pretense."

Finally, hear these closing comments from chapter one:

• "I have come to see prayer as a privilege, not a duty. Like all good things, prayer requires some discipline. Yet I believe that life with God should seem more like friendship than duty."

• "If prayer stands in the place where God and humans meet, then I must learn about prayer."

• Most of our struggles converge on this point: "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."

Yancey gets it. I look forward to learning about prayer with a fellow traveler like him.