C. S. Lewis pointed out that if you see through everything, you eventually see nothing.

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,

The only way to come to God is by taking off any spiritual mask. The real you has to meet the real God. He is a person.

You don’t create intimacy; you make room for it. This is true whether you are talking about your spouse, your friend, or God. You need space to be together. Efficiency, multitasking, and busyness all kill intimacy. In short, you can’t get to know God on the fly. If Jesus has to pull away from people and noise in order to pray, then it makes sense

Prayer = Helplessness God wants us to come to him empty-handed, weary, and heavy-laden. Instinctively we want to get rid of our helplessness before we come to God.

This spiritual writer who said we shouldn’t pray that God will spare our house from a fire has made prayer into a zero-sum game. The appearance of a fire truck doesn’t necessarily mean a house is on fire. There are other options. Maybe a cat is up in a tree. Maybe someone is hurt. The root problem is that this writer is overspiritualizing prayer.

In fact, Einstein said his science was driven by a belief in a “God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists” (emphasis added).[3]

God, you have got to give Emily faith this year. You have no choice. I was keenly aware of my inability to grow faith in her heart. God just had to do it. He didn’t have a choice. He was bound by his own covenant. Was this a name-it-and-claim-it power prayer? No, it was actually a powerless prayer. I prayed because I was weak. I wasn’t trying to

If we don’t get passionate with God in the face of disappointment, like the Canaanite woman, then cynicism slips in, and our hearts begin to harden. We begin a living death.