We cannot simply pray and then wait for God to do the rest.

As the books of Job, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk clearly show, God has a high threshold of tolerance for what appropriate to say in a prayer. God can "handle" my unsuppressed rage. I may well find that my vindictive feelings need God's correction - but only by taking those feelings to God will I have the opportunity for correction and healing.

Only in prayer can we learn to love God with all our heart, mind and soul.

Prayer unfolds in the stillness of the soul.

Prayer is - not just bowing your head a few times a day, it pervades all of life.

For me, prayer is not so much me setting out a shopping list of requests for God to consider as it is a way of keeping company with God.

Like all good things, prayer requires some discipline. Yet I believe that life with God should seem more like friendship than duty. Prayer includes moments of ecstasy and also dullness, mindless distraction and acute concentration, flashes of joy and bouts of irritation. In other words, prayer has features in common with all relationships that matter.

Prayer is to the skeptic a delusion, a waste of time. To the believer it represents perhaps the most important use of time.

Prayer is a place where God and humans meet.