E415 Mysteries of Faith: Prayer

When I thought about doing a series on Mysteries of Faith, one of the very first topics that came to my mind was prayer. Now, I’ve been a Christian since I was 5. Prayer has always been a part of my life. But if I’m honest, there are elements about prayer that I always just accepted as true, nodded my head at, and then moved on with the general way I’ve always prayed. As I got older though, I started to wonder about some things the way I imagine many of you wonder about prayer too. “Do my prayers really move God to act?” “Is there a proper way to pray?” “Why doesn’t God seem to answer all of my prayers?” I knew of prayer as talking with God, I even would say I knew why God wanted me to pray, but there were so many spiritual elements of prayer that were still so mysterious to me. Prayer is a completely spiritual practice. With Bible-reading, we’re at least engaging with a book. Prayer, on the other hand, is totally spiritual so I was excited to dive into some of the more deeply spiritual elements of prayer with my friend Dr. Kyle Strobel. Kyle Strobel is Associate Professor of Spiritual Theology at Talbot and author of the book Where Prayer Becomes Real: How Honesty with God Transforms Your Soul. Kyle has been on this podcast a few times in the past, once to talk specifically about his book on prayer, but today I invited him on to pull back the curtain on some of the more mysterious elements of prayer – what is really happening spiritually when we pray. Doable Discipleship is a Saddleback Church podcast produced and hosted by Jason Wieland. It premiered in 2017 and now offers more than 400 episodes. Episodes release every Tuesday on your favorite podcast app and on the Saddleback Church YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/saddleback). Resources Related to This Episode: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Prayer-Becomes-Real-Transforms/dp/1540900770 https://kylestrobel.substack.com/ Related Doable Discipleship Episodes: Mysteries of Faith: Union with Christ - h