Philip Yancey
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 66
Average rating: 4.5 of 5
It's not just talking to yourself with your hands in the air! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
Phil Yancey writes: "If I had to answer the question, 'Why Pray?' in one sentence, it would be: 'Because Jesus did.'"
And to what end? Phil Yancey "knows that the main purpose of prayer is not to make life easier, but to know God" (Review, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SENTINEL).
"How long, O Lord?" is another Frequently Asked Question. But prayer is not like a five-paragraph essay for your English class. Some Christians, men especially, are much too concerned about length. Jesus often asked his Twelve Disciples to bow their heads for "a WORD of prayer." But once you got him started, Jesus didn't quit. He could talk to his Father all night long. The Twelve would grow tired of listening, and fall asleep. More than once they awoke for breakfast, and Jesus was still talking.
So that's first rule of thumb: "Pray without ceasing."
The other good rule of thumb is: "Don't let anyone else overhear." Most people, when they pray to God, are not really interested in having a meaningful conversation. Usually, they just want to ask Him for stuff: Help me, Lord, to find my car keys (a boyfriend / job / rent-controlled apartment). Please, O Lord, cure my headache (lung cancer / teen acne). O Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? (a colour TV? / a night on the town?). Sometimes, if you have enough faith, prayer actually does work.
Next tip: Roll with the punches. The Lord answers EVERY prayer: It's just that sometimes His answer is Yes, and sometimes His answer is No.
(Caveat: a fire hydrant or a Buddha statue will answer every prayer with one of the same two replies, yes or no, in roughly the same proportions, as Jesus will do. But if you pray to an idol, Jesus may kill you; so I'm with Phil Yancey on this one: Pray to Jesus, it's safer.)
Yancey freely admits that God will not heal an amputated limb, or cystic fibrosis, or pancreatic cancer. He also concedes that unless God takes a special liking to you (videlicet, Moses, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, George W. Bush), the Lord is gonna do what the Lord is gonna do. So if you need to pray, the best strategy is to figure out what God will do anyway, and to pray for that.
Example: "Dear Lord, please don't allow my boyfriend to get struck by lightning." Or: "Please, Lord, don't let a piano fall from the sky on my boss's head." Or: "Our Father who art in Heaven, please permit me to pay taxes to the government." Or: "Dear Lord, please give us sunshine for our church picnic Saturday afternoon, as forecast on the Weather Channel" (but that last one can be a little chancy).
And at bedtime, you should say: "Phew! Thanks, Lord. You're amazing!"
If your child or parent or friend has a terminal illness, it's okay to ask God, politely, for that person to be healed. Just don't pester Him if the answer is "No." Yancey explains: "When I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God already directs towards that person," such as giving him a good dose of pancreatic cancer or cystic fibrosis.
Here are some ways not to pray:
* "O Lord, thousands of children die each day from malnutrition. Feed them."
* "Dear God, millions suffer from untreated disease. Heal them."
* "O Lord, will You please steer that big hurricane in some other direction than the Gulf Coast of the United States?"
God is powerful, and He can often do things that will surprise you. But don't expect Yahveh, or Jesus for that matter, to smile on overly-ambitious prayer requests. Those kinds of prayers actually annoy Him, because they fall on His ears like veiled criticism, or (worse) like begging, which--because He is holy--He cannot tolerate.
It used to be, when I talked to God, I never got half of what I asked for. But I was using the wrong system. Phil Yancey's book, PRAYER: DOES IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE?, has made a big, big difference. Ever since I read it, my prayers have scored close to 60/40. So I've got no complaints.
- L.
Editorial Review:
Philip Yancey probes the very heartbeat—the most fundamental, challenging, perplexing, and deeply rewarding aspect—of our relationship with God: prayer. What is prayer? Does it change God’s mind or ours—or both? This book is an invitation to communicate with God the Father who invites us into an eternal partnership through prayer.
