Exerpts from the book "A Praying Life"

When we don't recieve whapray for or desire, it doesn't mean that God isn't acting on our behalf. Rather, he's weaving his story. Paul tells us to "continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksging" (Colossians 4:2). Thanksgiving helps us to be grace centered, seeing all of life as a gift. It looks at how God's past blessings impact our lives. Watchfulness alerts us to the unfolding drama in the present. It looks for God's present working as it unfolds into future grace.
If Jesus were a magic prayer machine, he'd have healed this woman's daughter instantly, and we would not have discovered her feisty, creative spirit. Likewise, Jesus' ambiguity with us creates the space not only for him to emerge but us as well. If the miracle comes too quickly, there is no room for discovery, for relationship. With both this woman and us, Jesus is engaged in a divine romance, wooing us to himself. (Matthew 15)
The waiting that is the essence of faith provides the context for relationship. Faith and relationship are interwoven in dance. Everyone talks now about how prayer is relationship, but often what people me is having warm fuzzies with God. Nothing wrong with warm fuzzies but relationships are far richer and more complex.
Just to tell Jesus what I need and leave it with him is such a struggle.
When God seems silent and our prayers go unanswered, the overwhelming temptation is to leave the story- to walk out of the desert and attempt to create a normal life. But when we persist in a spiritual vacuum, when we hang in there during ambiguity, we get to know God. In fact, that is how intimacy grows in all close relationships.
Many of us wish God were more visible. We think that if we could see him better or know what is going on, then faith would come more easily. But if Jesus dominated the space and overwhelmed our vision, we would not be able to relate to him. Everyone who had a clear-eyed vision of God in the Bible fell doen as if he were dead. It is hard to relate to pure light.
I've been living at the edge of the abyss for several years now. Yes, I have had close times, have felt the presence of God, and these memories alone are what keep me from checking out.
Sometimes when we say "God is silent," what's really going on is that he hasn't told the story the way we wanted it told. He will be silent when we want him to fill in the blanks of the story we are creating. But with his own stories, the ones we live in, he is seldom silent.
If you wait, your heavenly Father will pick you up, carry you out into the night, and make your life sparkle. He wants to dazzle you with the wonder of his love.
i wanted success; he wanted authenticity. The Father was taking me on the same downward journey he took his son. Paul invited the Philippian church to join Jesus, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:6-7). The downward journey is a gospel story.
If Satan's basic game plan is pride, seeking to draw us into his life of arrogance, then God's basic game plan is humility, drawing us into the life of his Son. The Father can't think of anything better to give us than his Son.
To correctly discern when God is speaking to us, we need to keep the Word and Spirit together.
Love without being able to pray feels depressing and frustrating, like trying to tie a knot with gloves on. I would be powerless to do the other person any real good. People are far too complicated; the world is far too evil; and my own heart is too off center to be able to love adequately without praying. I need Jesus.
Living in unfinished stories draws us into God's final act, the return of Jesus. While we wait for his return, it is easy to predict the pattern of the last days. The book of Revelation pictures a suffering church, dying as creation itself is unraveling. Through suffering God will finally make his church beautiful and reveal his glory. In the desert you see his glory. In the last days the bride will be made beautiful, pure, waiting for her lover. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.