The Bible never belittles human disappointment ... but it does add one key word: temporary.

Prayer is a declaration of dependence upon God.

God formed an alliance based on the world as it is, full of flaws, whereas prayer calls God to account for the world as it should be.

If prayer stands as the place where God and human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer. Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle around the same two themes: why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why I don't act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge.

Whatever else we may say about it, the atonement fulfills the Jewish principle that only one who has been hurt can forgive. At Calvary, God chose to be hurt.

Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainty who would need faith at all?

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