by Philip Yancey

See this item in the bookstore...

review by Paula Hampton

PASTORS, MISSIONARIES, leaders of Christian organizations, and ordinary lay people consider prayer an important and valuable spiritual discipline. Yet many feel inadequate and frustrated by their own attempts at prayer. In Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? author Philip Yancey explores the hard questions about prayer that many of us ponder but few of us voice.

“I write about prayer as a pilgrim, not an expert,” Yancey begins. “I have the same questions that occur to almost everyone at some point. Is God listening? Why should God care about me? If God knows everything, what's the point of prayer? Why do answers to prayer seem so inconsistent, even capricious? ...Does prayer change God or change me?”

“I investigate the topic of prayer as a pilgrim, strolling about, staring at the monuments, asking questions, mulling things over, testing the waters. I admit to an imbalance, an overreaction to time spent among Christians who promised too much and pondered too little, and as a result I try to err on the side of honesty and not pretense.”

This honesty—clear and void of pretense—sets Yancey's writing apart. Yancey writes from journalistic instinct—always candid, never condescending or condemning. Readers like me respond to his accessible, investigative style. Yancey is not a theologian who writes, but rather a writer not afraid to wrestle with his and others' spiritual and theological questions—the questions many of us face on a daily basis.

Sections include “Keeping Company with God,” “Unraveling the Mysteries,” “The Language of Prayer,” “The Practice of Prayer,” and perhaps most helpful, “Prayer Dilemmas.” In this section Yancey bravely and sensitively addresses universal questions of unanswered prayer, prayer and physical healing, and what to pray for. Personal anecdotes and the prayer journeys of others are sprinkled throughout the book.

Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? won't offer techniques for making prayer “work” more efficiently. It's not a “how-to” book, and those looking for formulas might be disappointed. But those looking for insights into the character of God and God's activity in the world, those for whom doubts and darkness thwart attempts at prayer, and those who long for freedom and authenticity before God will find in Yancey's book inspiration and encouragement to continue as pilgrims on their own pathway of prayer.

Why pray? Yancey asks. Does it make any difference?

“I pray,” he concludes, “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. Prayer is hardly a perfect form of communication, for I, an imperfect, material being who lives on an imperfect, material planet am reaching out for a perfect, spiritual Being. Some prayers go unanswered, a sense of God's presence ebbs and flows, and often I sense more mystery than resolution. Nevertheless I keep at it, believing with Paul that ‘now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.'”

Have you read this book? Add your comments below.