Study Guide for Chapter 12: “Yearning for Fluency” and Chapter 13: “Prayer Grammar”.
This week we enter Part Three of “Prayer—Does it make any difference?”, by Philip Yancey. Coming after Part One, “Keeping Company With God” and Part Two, “Unraveling The Mysteries”, this section, “The Language of Prayer” brings us back to earth. Less theological and more practical, it offers some insights that can help us develop a more consistent and satisfying prayer life.
Because they don’t answer our most immediate questions about prayer, we could be tempted to slide over these four chapters and get to the “good stuff” in the next part , “Prayer Dilemmas”. I’m reminded of the brief time I took piano lessons (as an adult). I wanted to understand the theory behind chords and harmony; and I got bored with the routine of practicing every day.
Much like learning to play an instrument involves practice, Yancey treats learning to pray like learning a foreign language. It takes practice, a routine, and eventually submersion into a world where that language is spoken. Still, as one who has a learned a “second language”, I know that what is “second” to me is native to someone else. Without moving to a French-speaking country, I could never be able to converse fluently with someone for whom French is their native language.
The two chapters for this week help us start to develop fluency in prayer with the One for whom it is the native language.
Chapter 12: “Yearning for Fluency”
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
B. Book/Bible Study
1. Write out the Henri Nouwen quotation at the head of the chapter and respond to it.
2. What expectations might one have about prayer that are unrealistic and need to be adjusted?
3. Distinguish prayer (as Yancey describes it in the last sentence on page 166) from the secular meditation technique of emptying the mind.
Chapter 13: “Prayer Grammar”
A. A memorized verse: Matthew 6:9-13 (KJV) After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
- Yancey talks about the prayers of the Bible as templates for prayers. How could you use them as templates for your prayers?
- Have you ever used any of these other templates to aid you in prayer? [hymns, poems, formulas for prayer like “A.C.T.S.” [Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication]? If so, how did they help?
C. Class Discussion
- Explain the title of this chapter as Yancey describes it.
- Your questions and comments
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