A friend sent me this link from Piper’s blog on asking and prayer. I love John’s honesty about his skeptism about answered prayer — it is very refreshing:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/AskPastorJohn/ByTopic/35/3406_What_can_I_do_to_regain_confidence_in_prayer/

I also heartily agree with Piper that saturating yourself in the Word will restore your confidence in answered prayer. Yet, I wish I could get Piper to read a draft of “A Praying Life” or attend one of our prayer seminars that Bob and I do. I hope to finish my work on the book either today or Monday. One of the big themes of the book is that there is a Gnostic imprint in the church that keeps us from asking. Augustine for example, says, “Ask nothing of God, but God himself.” At our seminars I write that up on the white board and say, “Imagine that your husband really, really loves you. He is God’s best gift to you as a wife.” Now one day he comes in and says, “You don’t need to ask me for anything because I’m your best gift.” Everyone cracks up laughing. It’s absurd. Relationships don’t work that way. We don’t separate being from doing.

Just this morning in prayer I felt my heart a little dull…as Piper describes his heart…so I rebooted my heart by taking some time to reflect on how God provided this new-to-us house and all the ways over the past three years God kept Jill and I from making bad decisions. And we made some really bad ones in hunting for a house and each time God blocked us. Thanksgiving restores my memory of God’s repeated and thoughtful involvement in my life.