What prayer is and isn't

Dan Phillips from over at the Pyromaniacs just posted this insightful/digging post on "What prayer is and isn't". Let me know what y'all think...

Bro. Hank ><>

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What prayer is and isn't
by Dan Phillips

Preface: with all of yesterday's hilarity, I feel like some dour, prunefaced prig coming in with this serious-subject post. But Frank has decided Thursday's my day, so if I sit on it, he'll mock me. But then again, if I post it, he'll mock me, so... oh well, once more into the breach.

The minefield that is prayer. I can't think of one specific doctrine, offhand, which is more tradition-laden, and buried under sentimentality, than that of prayer.

For that very reason, it's a risky topic. Step in any direction, and you land on someone's toes. Worse, diverge from the "party line," and it's as if you're insulting Mom. Only a fool, or someone with nothing to lose, would knowingly poke a stick at that particular venerated bovine. (Say, why are you looking at me like that?)

Christianoid notions. Common Christian coinage describes prayer as a conversation, declares that "there is power in prayer," makes prayer out to be the be-all and end-all of Christian living. Prayer is "the greatest power on earth," we're told. Is this Scriptural thinking?

Think of Frank Peretti's Darkness books. I read one or two. I thought them imaginative and fast-moving, but neither great theology nor great literature.

In his imagination, Peretti pulls the curtain aside on the spiritual battle that Scripture describes. He shows demons and angels alike in action, makes up their dialogue, fantasizes their attempts to ruin or protect human beings.

Here's what sticks in my mind. What do you suppose strikes terror into Peretti's demons? When does everything start to turn around, for the demons' defeat and the saints' victory? It's when the saints pray. Nothing scares fallen angels, apparently, like praying Christians.

Now, it strikes me that all of this is backwards at worst, sideways at best.

Biblical teaching. What is prayer, in the Bible? It's one thing, and one thing only: prayer is talking to God. Period. That's it. It might be talking in the form of praise, petition, confession, supplication, exclamation, or a host of other forms. It might be talking to God while happy (Psalm 43:4), sad (Psalm 42:9), mad (Psalm 10:15), hurried (Nehemiah 2:4), guilty (Psalm 51:1), busy and distracted (Nehemiah 4:9), or near death (Acts 7:59-60). But it all boils down to that one irreducible: prayer is what you say to God.

No arguments so far? Great. Now fasten your seatbelts, and consider this:...(click here for the rest)