A hundred and some pages into Yancey’s book, here are a few quotes worth sharing…
Walter Wink:
“Biblical prayer is impertinent, persistent, shameless, indecorous. It is more like haggling in an outdoor bazaar than the polite monologues of the church.”
Soren Kierkegaard:
“The true relation in prayer is not when God hears what we prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God wills.”
Eugene Peterson:
“Be slow to pray. Praying puts us at risk of getting involved with God’s conditions…. Praying most often doesn’t get us what we want but what God wants, something quite at variance with what we conceive to be in our best interests. And when we realize what is going on, it is often too late to go back.”
Karl Barth:
“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
“A day without morning and evening prayers and personal intercessions is actually a day without meaning or importance.”
Love the Eugene Peterson quote.
I’ve also come across the idea lately of prayer being shameless, persistent and audacious.
Jesus in Luke tells a story of a man coming to his friends house late at night to ask for food for a travelling friend. The friend at first says no, but because of the person asking is doing it with “shameless audacity”, he gives in. Jesus likens this to how we are to pray.
Much different than we are often taught how to pray.