Drew

“Prayer is the way to experience a powerful confidence that God is handling our lives well, that our bad things will turn out for good, our good things cannot be taken from us, and the best things are yet to come.”
― Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God

“What is prayer, then, in the fullest sense? Prayer is continuing a conversation that God has started through his Word and his grace, which eventually becomes a full encounter with him.”
― Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God

“More mystically minded people sometimes suppose that words by their very nature are an obstruction to the goal of a deep communion with God, but that is just not so.” If God’s words are his personal, active presence, then to put your trust in God’s words is to put your trust in God. “Communication from God is therefore communion with God, when met with a response of trust from us.” Of course, there can be, in prayer, times of simple stillness in his presence, but even at the human level, “a man and a woman sitting in a restaurant gazing silently into each other’s eyes . . . are engaging in a much more genuine relationship if they are doing so with twenty years of conversation-filled marriage behind them, than if they are on their first date and have not yet spoken to each other.”108”
― Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God

“God does not merely require our petitions but our selves, and no one who begins the hard, lifelong trek of prayer knows yet who they are. Nothing but prayer will ever reveal you to yourself, because only before God can you see and become your true self. To paraphrase something is to get the gist of it and make it accessible. Prayer is learning who you are before God and giving him your essence. Prayer means knowing yourself as well as God.”
― Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God