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Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? Book Cover Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?, Philip Yancey, Zondervan, Grand Rapids MI, 2006. ISBN-10: 0-310-27105-3. ISBN-13: 978-0-310-27105-5.

According to the Bible, there was a time when God and Adam walked together in the garden and conversed as friends. Then prayer was as natural as conversation with a colleague or lover.

Yet today many of us echo the comments of this young college woman: "I'm not always sincere when I pray. Sometime it seems forces, more like a ritual. I'm just repeating words. Does God hear those prayers? Should I keep going even though I have no confidence that I'm doing it right?" Pastors and ordinary Christians alike consistently rank prayer high in importance--and also high in frustration.

If God knows everything, what's the point of prayer?

Writing as a fellow pilgrim about that mysterious intersection where God and humanity meet and relate, the author pushes beyond conventional treatments with the fresh, unique perspective that has become his trademark. Yancey explores such questions as:

• Is God listening?
• Why should God care about me?
• Why do so many prayers go unanswered?
• Why does God let the world go on as it does and not intervene?
• Does prayer really help with physical healing?
• Why does God seem sometimes close and sometimes far away?
• Does prayer change God or change me?
• How can I make prayer more satisfying?

Yancey backs his answers with crystal-clear insights into the importance God places on prayer and why we should value it.