Outside Reading: "Moving Mountains"

John Eldridge writes in "Moving Mountains" that prayer is the “treasure God has given us for not losing heart” a reference to John 16:33: “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.” When we forsake the pursuit of prayer in the present plight of despair, we reject the larger picture of who God is and what is calling is for us in the present: “Take heart!”
He insists that our role is of importance to God, not because he needs our assistance or is incapable of intervention without us, but because he desires to increase our faith and transform us as we partake in the hope for a miracle. He references this quote from Augustine: “Without God, we cannot, and without us, he will not.”
     I resonate with the truth of this perspective of prayer because it reminds me of something my pastor often addresses. He speaks to the warped depiction of God that we often paint, in which He is needy and greedy for our affection, our affirmation of Him as supreme over all things, and that he is selfish, desperate, even demanding, for our attention.
This is a distortion that we create.

God is all-powerful and all-knowing (Is.42:1-2, Matt. 19:26, Jer.32:37) He doesn’t need us to pray to Him; rather, He desires to bring us into a deeper relationship with Him and reveal Himself to us. How can He answer prayers that we do not risk praying? He wants to show us that He hears us, yet if we do not confide and petition Him, how can our faith be increased and our praises raised to Him when He answers them? Prayer is a means of us drawing close to Him, and thereby losing sight of ourselves (kenosis) and our current problems and circumstances.

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