Prayer

I am reading Philip Yancey’s book on Prayer: Does it make difference. A good provocative read.

Prayer is vital to me, yet it is one of the biggest mysteries I have concerning my faith walk with Christ. I continue to grapple with how prayer affects my walk with God and God’s working in my life and in the world around me.

Eugene Peterson says it this way

“My grammar book said, “The middle voice is that use of the verb which describes the subjects as participating in the results of the action.” I read that now, and it reads like a description of Christian prayer- “the subject as participating in the results of the action.” I do not control the action: that is a pagan concept of prayer, putting the gods to work by my incantations or rituals. I am not controlled by the action: that is a Hindu concept of prayer in which I slump passively into the impersonal and fated will of gods and goddesses. I enter into the action begun by another, my creating and saving Lord, and find myself participating in the results of the action. I neither do it, nor have it done to me; I will to participate in what is willed.

As I continue to try to understand prayer there is one thing I know for certain. Prayer is commanded by my Lord so I am all the more determined to pray and keep asking for prayer; working in partnership with my Savior and Creator.