Final Excerpts from Prayer

I found out recently that Philip Yancey has a blog now at http://www.philipyancey.com/

He doesn’t post very often but some may want to check it out. I was pleased to see him write a post in support of Dr. Francis Collins, an evangelical who helped found the BioLogos forum at http://www.biologos.org/ before stepping down to become Obama’s appointee to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Standing beside a TE (theistic evolutionist) makes one a target for angry rhetoric in the evangelical world.

There is much substance in Yancey’s book on prayer that needs to be reflected on by the reader, I would recommend it to all. There is a chapter on unanswered prayer that points out that even the Bible includes examples of unanswered prayer. Moses did not get to cross over into the promised land despite his prayers and David lost the infant son he prayed over.

Some excerpts from the last chapters:

“In a nutshell, the main difficulty with unanswered prayers is that Jesus seemed to promise there need not be any.” Page 234

“The assurance of answered prayers, still sweeping in its scope, comes with conditions. Am I abiding in Christ? Am I making requests according to his will? Am I obeying his commands? Each of these underscores the relationship, the companionship with God.” Page 235

“The trail of God at work rarely follows a straight line, which means our prayers may well produce different answers than we expect.” Page 241

“In answering prayers, God normally relies on human agents.” Page 242

“Historically most of the major advances in leprosy treatment have come from Christian missionaries – mainly because they were the only ones willing to treat the dreaded disease.” Page 244

“More than half the spontaneous prayers I hear in church pertain to the sick.” Page 248

“I would never want to dampen someone’s faith, because bold faith surely impressed Jesus. Yet the stack of letters in my file cabinet convinces me that we can do equal harm by holding out false hope of physical healing.” Page 249

“It puzzles me that some Christians who accept the regularity of natural laws in other areas resist them when it comes to health.” Page 255

“Each of us learns to adapt our prayers to natural laws.” Page 255

In terms of physical health, you could say that the power of prayer has limits: no prayer will reverse the aging process, banish death, or eliminate the need for nourishment.” Page 256

“God neither protects Christians with a shield of health nor provides a quick, dependable solution to all suffering.” Page 260

“Faith works. It aligns body, mind, and spirit, and galvanizes the healing processes built into our bodies.” Page 268

“With prayer much of the benefit takes place behind the scenes, beneath the level of conscious awareness, in ways difficult to measure.” Page 287

“For a recovering fundamentalist, it takes courage to trust that the gospel truly is good news from a God who is love.” Page 291

“God, who is timeless, requires of us a mature faith that may, as it did for many of these, involve delays that seem like trials. Patience is one sign of that maturity, a quality that can develop only through the passage of time.” Page 297

At its best, my prayer does not seek to manipulate God into doing my will – quite the opposite. Prayer enters the pool of God’s own love and widens outward.” Page 308

“I pray in astonished belief that God desires an ongoing relationship. I pray in trust that the act of prayer is God’s designated way of closing the vast gulf between infinity and me. I pray in order to put myself in the stream of God’s healing work on earth. I pray as I breathe – because I can’t help it.” Page 326

I would urge my family and friends to avail themselves of prayer and stay connected to the Vine.

Lou

John 15:5 (New American Standard Bible)

⁵"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he ^(A)bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

PS Not sure what I did but those links above don't work, try copying and pasting.