Prayer

I thought it apt, to continue where I last left off in the previous post to invest more time in the study of that which mattered in the grander scheme of things. A lot of people ask these days, about Prayer, and if it really worked, or if it mattered at all? It was thus timely, that the answer came, for me at least, in the following passage taken from Yancey's recent book Prayer - Does it Make A Difference (Zondervan, 2006). Harold writes on pp. 83:

"For me, prayer is the key to making life an adventure. In the Lord of the Rings series by Tolkien, poor Frodo only gets enough direction for the next lap of the journey. As he looks back, it all works out, but most of the time he wanders around confused and helpless. Only occasionally, and in subtle ways does Gandalf actively give assistance and guidance.
Like Frodo, we live ina world of opposition, one saturated with sex and full of evil, violence and poverty. This is my Father's world? I come to God with my complaints and laments. I grapple with God, call him to account. And I believe God welcomes that dialogue. In the process, I learn who I am. Someone asked the Swiss counselor Paul Tournier, "What's your definition of a hypocrite?" and he replied, C'est moi - It is I. Prayer reminds me of that truth.
Prayer also straightens out my expectations. My son, small for his age loves to play football. He practices faithfully, slogging through the mud, and during games, he expects to get smashed by defensive players who outweigh him by a hundred pounds. He sees football as a kind of battle, and naturally it will include pain and conflict. I see the Christian's life on this planet as a battle, too. We try to follow God on a place in active rebellion against him. I don't expect prayer to make that any easier, any less problem-filled. I do expect it to give me the inner strength to keep fighting. Persistence is my way of demonstrating faith."

Yancey writes:
"If prayer stands as the place where God and human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer. I have now written twenty books, and in some way of other most of them 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 two themes converge."

As I work my way through the book, it's becoming increasingly absorbing as it begins to reveal passages in Scripture that are jumping out at me in ways in which I hadn't perceived them before. And to think that I dared thing that life on this Island was getting a tad bit...well, I did suppose I was getting a little ahead of myself...