Yancey: Does Prayer Change God? (cont.)

There are so many subjects that could be taken up in prayer. Many are large, overwhelming personal subjects. Illness, unemployment. Some take on a more global nature. War, poverty, persecution.

Yancey writes, "To my shame, petty interruptions in my own life often crowd out these concerns: a balky computer, a series of car and home repairs, a to-do list that never gets done. I confess to God my sins and realize they are the same sins I confessed yesterday, and last week, and the week before. Will nothing every change? Will I?"

As I sit and try to quiet my mind to pray, my world calls to me. Things that need done, things left undone.

Yancey continues, "Go into your closet and shut the door, Jesus advised. I envisioned doing just that: entering a closet with my pressing, time-bound burdens and asking God to renew, refresh, remind--in other words, to pour some eternity into me."

I like that phrase, "pour some eternity into me." Prayer can shift my focus from me, my, mine to larger needs of the world and God's action in it.