HIM Conference, Part 1

Well, as promised, here are some of my thoughts and ponderings from the conference I recently attended. The first speaker I heard in a seminar was Phillip Yancey, and he was talking about Prayer (the topic of his most recent book). He talked about how he interviewed many people, and read many other people's books on prayer and came to the conclusion that people almost always are dissatisfied with their prayer life. He then talked about the bible's examples of prayers. He mentioned that there are about 650 prayers recorded in the bible and that about 1/3 of them are prayers of lamentation. He talked about lamentation and described as basically people complaining. His deal about this was that maybe God wants us to ritually lament (he said, " we say it's something that rhymes with the word 'itching'"). God cares about when we are distressed, sad, doubtful, or even angry. He also talked about how the process is healing for us as people to verbalize these things.

I am one of those dissatisfied with my prayer life. I wish I spent more time, as Yancey describes, communing with God, but I don't, and I get upset that I don't, but never upset enough to change it. I am however, encouraged by what Yancey taught; prayer is simple, spending time focused on God, inviting God to be a part of my day, and inviting (accepting God's invitation) myself into God 's workings for the day. I know I don't need to be a cloistered, saintly monk to spend my day communing with the Creator and King of everything, and sharing my life, joys, triumphs, fear and pain with the Saviour who redeems it all back.

Thoughts on Prayer? Are you satisfied? Why are most people dissatisfied? Any beneficial tips to make communing with God more of a reality?

Update: Our student intern Kenji Fukunaga posted his thoughts on this seminar on his blog