Thursday Thirteen: Great Quotes from my current read

I'm reading Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Phillip Yancey right now. I have to admit, I was pleased when I opened it for the first time and saw that it was by no means going to be a light-hearted treatment of the subject. This being my first Yancy title, I was also immediately impressed by his humility. He writes, not as a studied authority (although it's obvious he has studied) but rather as a student, or as he calls himself, a pilgrim on the same journey.

Anyways, it's chock full of one-liners that make me grab my pencil and underline things. I've only just finished Chapter 3, but I thought I'd give you sneak preview in the form of a few snippets. In these first few chapters, Yancey establishes the ideas that 1) God is in control, and 2) prayer is much about coming to God just as we are.

1. In prayer I shift my point of view away from my own selfishness. (p. 29)
   
2. Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God's point of view. (p.29)
3. I begin with confession not in order to feel miserable, rather to call to mind a reality I often ignore. . . Confession simply establishes the ground rules of creatures relating to their creator. (p. 31)
   
4. Truth hurts. Yet I cannot receive healing unless I accept God's diagnosis of my wounded state. (p. 32)
   
5. . . . humbling was no end to itself, but a necessary step to the healing. (p. 33)
6. Asking for help lies at the root of prayer: the Lord's prayer itself consists of a string of such requests. Prayer is a declaration of dependence upon God. (p. 34)
7. Humility . . . means rather, that in the presence of God I gain a glimpse of my true state in the universe, which exposes my smallness at the same time it reveals God's greatness. (p. 37)
8. Prayer allows a place for me to bring my doubts and complaints - in sum, my ignorance - and subject them to the blinding light of a reality I cannot comprehend but can haltingly learn to trust. (p. 40)
   
9. More than anything, God wants your authentic self. (p. 41)
10. "We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us," wrote C.S. Lewis. To put it another way, we must trust God with what God already knows. (p. 42)
11. Prayer invites me to bring my whole life into God's presence for cleansing and restoration. (p. 42)
12. Self-exposure is never easy, but when I do it I learn that underneath the layers of grime lies a damaged work of art that God longs to repair. (p. 42)
13. Foolishly, I hide myself in fear that God will be displeased, though in fact the hiding may be what displeases God most.

I'm looking forward to future chapters (19 more!) with titles such as Ask, Seek and Knock; Tongue-Tied, and What to Pray For. If you're lingering between books right now, I highly recommend this one.