The Nature of Prayer
There are shelves and shelves of books devoted to the subject of prayer. One common feature of these books is that, no matter how experienced the authors are or how much they have researched the matter, they admit up front that they struggle with this crucial Christian activity. Even a spiritual luminary and scholar like J.I. Packer wrote that “we are all…poor strugglers in our experience of praying.” So if you’re new to prayer, or have crashed and burned many times over in your attempts at meaningful prayer, be of good cheer. You certainly are not alone. And just in case you think that because I am writing an upbeat book on prayer that I don’t struggle, that would not be true. I struggle along with the rest. It just comes with the territory. The occasional struggle, though, is well worth it.
On its surface, prayer is not complex or confusing. Prayer is conversation or communication with God. Most of us possess basic communication skills already. So presumably if we can converse with other humans successfully, we have the essential tool set we need to communicate with God.
Now I don’t want to make it sound as though it’s exactly like chatting with your neighbor over the backyard fence. Clearly there are some key differences in play when one is conversing with an invisible being who can speak billions of galaxies into existence! Not only might we be intimidated by his immense power, knowledge, and holiness, but we also might be overwhelmed to consider the kinds of resources he brings to the table. Yet he invites us. He is a loving Creator and Father who has made it abundantly clear that he wants to hear from us, to interact with us, to have a full-fledged family relationship that involves close conversation.
*Taken from Fearless Prayer: Why We Don’t Ask And We Should by Craig J. Hazen. Copyright (c) 2018 Craig J.Hazen Published by Harvest House, Eugene, OR, www.harvesthousepublishers.com
