Philip Yancey - Prayer Participants Guide: Six Sessions on Our Relationship with God

L ORD , our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what are mere mortals that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

P SALM 8:1, 3 4

[Your Notes]

How would you describe your experiences with prayer?

[Your Response]

What do you understand the purpose of prayer to be?

[Your Response]

What do you long to experience in your prayer life?

[Your Response]

Lessons from the mountains

[Your Notes]

Catching a glimpse of the Gods Eye View

[Your Notes]

Prayer: realigning our perspectives

[Your Notes]

We are not in control

[Your Notes]

God is not our accomplice

[Your Notes]

Prayer is the act of seeing reality from Gods point of view. In prayer I shift my point of view away from the speck that is myself. I gaze at the stars and recall what role I or any of us play in a universe beyond comprehension.

Prayer, p. 29

1. What is the Gods Eye View that Philip describes? (M EMORY J OGGER : How did the hikers appear to Philip and his wife as they looked down from the summit ridge? What big impact did the lightning storm have on Philips perception of life? When it comes to Gods work, who is the accomplice?)

[Your Response]

2. The video segment provided several examples of how our human perceptions of what is most important and how life ought to work stand in opposition to the Gods Eye View of what is most important and how life really works.

In what ways do the messages of the worlds view of life contrast with Jesus message about what really matters in life?

[Your Response]

What are some ways we might, as Philip suggests, correct the worlds messages with the Gods Eye View?

[Your Response]

3. When we come face to face with the reality of how little control we have over our future, many of us get a little nervous. What do you think could happen in our prayer life and in our relationship with God if, in the midst of our uncertain future, we intentionally chose to be still and know that [he is] God?

[Your Response]

Every day my vision clouds over so that I perceive nothing but a world of matter. It requires a daily act of will to remember what Paul told the sophisticated crowd in Athens: [God] is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:27 28).

Prayer, p. 22

1. We tend to rely on our own sufficiency, but the Bible repeatedly exposes the true nature of earthly life. What unmistakable message about the Gods Eye View of life is communicated through Psalms 39:4; 90:12; James 4:13 14; and 1 Peter 1:24?

[Your Response]

2. Jobs trials challenged his perspective and led him to reflect intensely on his human condition and Gods role in the world.

What did the Lord of the universe remind Job about when he was wallowing in self-pity and demanding that God respond to his theological queries? (See Job 38:4 11, and note that Gods response continues through Job 40:2.)

[Your Response]

In his great discourse, God didnt provide even one specific answer to Jobs probing questions. But what did Job say in response to Gods thundering query, Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? (Job 38:2), that shows he got Gods message loud and clear? (See Job 42:1 6.)

[Your Response]

3. Philip encourages us to recognize the importance of Gods command in Psalm 46:10: Be still, and know that I am God. He helps us realize that we are not in control of the world (or our futures) and that the appropriate response to our condition is to be still before our powerful and merciful God and turn over our concerns and problems to that God. Lets deepen our understanding of what God means by this command and explore how we might go about obeying it.