Therapeutic Prayer

We tend to want our prayers to be therapeutic, to leave us relaxed. More often than we wish, God would have them leave us stirred up. No wonder we get bored with prayer! No wonder we experience prayer in the same way director Billy Wilder said he experienced a film once. “The film started at 8 P.M. I looked at my watch at midnight and it was only 8:15.” What would happen to us if we really believed that we may affect the way God does his work, and that with holy impertinence we may actually resist him—with his blessing?