Philip Yancey joined Neil Stavem on Connecting Faith to talk about the importance of prayer. He wrote the book, Prayer: Does it Make a Difference.

yancey

  Prayer provides perspective. Philip Yancey says in this interview, “You begin prayer in realizing the vast difference between a sovereign God and little ol’ me.”

It is easy for us to think the world revolves around ourselves; we are bombarded with this message every day.  Prayer reminds us that there is more going on than we have eyes to see; prayer invites us to see the world as God sees it.  We begin to think like God, see what he sees,

Most of us have two main types of prayers: help and thanks.  Prayer cannot be reduced to a slot in the day. Prayer should be an open and ongoing communication with God throughout the day.  It is important not to compartmentalize prayer, separating it from the rest of our lives.and to live it out.

God is attentive to our prayers. It is easy to think that God has too much to do; that he cannot hear our prayers.  God is not like us; he is not locked into one time or space. He has the infinite ability to give complete attention.

If you are wondering if prayer works look at Jesus, he would spend all night in prayer. His prayer life teaches us 3 things:

•  Keep your prayers honest.
•  Keep your prayers short.
•  Keep praying.

Prayer is not about us waving our hands trying to get God’s attention to look at our to-do list. It is our way of tying into God and his will for the world. It is about God more than it is about us. We are in a partnership with God. Through prayer, God has giving us the ability to make a difference with what we care about most on earth.

Prayer is our conduit to reach God. He gets pleasure in watching and helping us do what he can do on his own.  If we stop praying for something there is the potential that what God wants done will not get done. We need to pray for the impossible, because God can do the impossible.

For more, listen as Neil and Phillip discuss and answer the following questions and more about prayer.

Is urgency your motivation for prayer?
Does prayer make a difference?
Does God change his mind or change our minds?
Do we need to clean up our emotions to pray?
What happens when we invite God into every area of our lives?

Prayer: Does it matter?