Jaymie Stuart Wolfe on Transforming Prayer

"Most of us spend a lot of what we think of as 'prayer time' trying to talk God into seeing things our way. We beg and plead, whine and remind, and generally push as hard as we can to get whatever it is we want. This is pretty much the case, even when we are praying for someone else. We show up before the throne of the Almighty with our dukes up and our terms prepared. We want God to intervene, but only if he is amenable to our details. Otherwise, we'd rather just keep praying, or say that God didn't answer us at all.

"Let's get something straight: that really isn't prayer, and God's answer to it is often a very big, very loud 'No.' I know the kind of desperation and fear that is behind that one-way, my-way-or-the-highway approach. Who doesn't? But I also know that prayer is never aimed at changing God's mind; prayer is about changing our hearts. Genuine prayer gives us a glimpse at things - and at ourselves - from God's perspective. The whole point of it is to see things his way so that we can do things his way."

In a recent commentary, writer Jaymie Stuart Wolfe reflected on deepen our prayer by opening ourselves, a little bit a a time, to God's grace.

To access Ms. Wolfe's complete post, please visit:

The Boston Pilot: Echoes: Transforming prayer (24 MAR 17)