A Praying Life

Remember, the point of Christianity isn’t to learn a lot of truths so you don’t need God anymore. We don’t learn God in the abstract. We are drawn into his life.

Prayer is strikingly intimate. As soon as you take a specific answer to prayer and try to figure out what caused it, you lose God. We simply cannot see the causal connections between our prayers and what happens. But don’t forget this isn’t just true of prayer. All the best things in life have no visible connections. For example, selfless love, lov

God wants to do something bigger than simply answer my prayers. The act of praying draws God into my life and begins to change me, the pray-er, in subtle ways.

The fatalism inherent in so much modern psychology immobilizes us as well. Emotional states are sacred. If I’m grumpy, I have a right to feel that way and to express my feelings. Everyone around me simply has to “get over it.” One of the worst sins, according to pop psychology, is to suppress your emotions. So to pray that I won’t be angry feels un

Not surprisingly, thanklessness is the first sin to emerge from our ancient rebellion against God. Paul writes, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” (Romans 1:21).

2. Learn to Hope Again Cynicism kills hope. The world of the cynic is fixed and immovable; the cynic believes we are swept along by forces greater than we are. Dreaming feels like so much foolishness. Risk becomes intolerable. Prayer feels pointless, as if we are talking to the wind. Why set ourselves and God up for failure?

The waiting that is the essence of faith provides the context for relationship. Faith and relationship are interwoven in dance. Everyone talks now about how prayer is relationship, but often what people mean is having warm fuzzies with God. Nothing wrong with warm fuzzies, but relationships are far richer and more complex.

Later that month I realized God wanted to teach me how to listen to those who had a problem with me. Here’s what I wrote in my journal about what I was learning: Be sensitive to how hard it is for the other person to share. Ask, “Do you want me to respond or to just think about it?” Even if it doesn’t seem true, try to find something I’ve done wron

We’re trying to be spiritual, to get it right. We know we don’t need to clean up our act in order to become a Christian, but when it comes to praying, we forget that. We, like adults, try to fix ourselves up.