Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

Great book by Yancey on the real struggle of prayer in the life of Christians. He does a great job of balancing the sovereignty of God with the power of prayer as well as answering why at times all we hear is silence.

I received the book in excellent condition. The content of the book was highly informative and helpful to me. I used some of Yancey's thoughts to put together a weekend retreat presentation on prayer. It was well received. Yancy brings high credibility to his writing and thus has become an icon for reading within the whole Christian community.

My women's Bible Study group started studying this today and so far, so good. Overall, I love Philip Yancey's work in general and I knew his insight into prayer would be helpful and refreshing. This is a great resource if you want to lead a small group Bible study but feel too intimidated to create your own study. You buy the DVD that goes along with it and basically the leader is just a facilitator helping to lead a discussion. I recommend it highly.

This book gives an honest look at the challenge of prayer in our noisy and busy modern society. Mr. Yancey gives us amazing insight and understanding on how to deepen not just your prayer life, but the ultimate goal, a deeper relationship with Jesus!

Phillip Yancey has a special gift for relating his own spiritual experiences in such a way that it teaches and strenghtens others. We used it in a group study with about 20 folks and it was well received by all

I think that Phillip Yancey is a great author. His books are so easy to read. His book on prayer is not a hard to understand text book, but is a concise volume of what works in the practice of prayer. His down to earth attitude has helped me to understand the important aspects of my prayer life, and improved it.

Philip Yancey does it every time. Yet this is THE best of his books that I have ever read. A fresh new perspective on prayer in his usual down to earth, exposed manner. He is not ashamed to voice those very questions and doubts that we all have and search for earnest answers that make a lot of sense. A must read!

This book is probably one of the most balanced reads on the subject of prayer that I have read. Mr. Yancey does an excellent job with striking the balance between praying rationally and realistically; without formulas and pipe-dreams. The text was peppered with his personal and transparent experiences. I really enjoyed that he willingly admits the things he does not know or understand.

This covered most areas of prayer, helping you to have a better understanding what it is, what this is not, and how we can be more involved in this practice, building our relationship with our Heavenly Father.

"Prayer" is an overlong -- albeit well-written -- book that generates more questions than answers. If you don't already have a firm grounding in Christianity and/or the Scriptures, Yancey's book is likely to leave you utterly confused as to whether prayer makes any difference or not. I found the author's inability to take a stand one way or the other on anything relating to prayer a bit disconcerting, but I did manage to get some catchphrases out of it that seem to have value. Also, like most political liberals, Yancey worships at the altar of "global warming" and routinely references it in his book, and freely uses "right wingers" as examples but nowhere makes any reference to "left wingers." I would really have preferred he keep this kind of stuff out of a book on prayer. While I think the book was worth reading from a scholastic standpoint, I would not recommend it to anyone who is truly searching for answers about whether God listens to us or not.

This guide is exactly what my prayer-life needed! It is an easy to read, incredibly insightful journey into prayer, helping to examine not only ones beliefs & doubts about it, but also the biblical basis for prayer's purpose & promises.

I listened to the book on CD and absolutely recommend this title. While the first portion of the book was a bit "slow" - it quickly picked up after that, giving one real "meat" on the topic. Kudos to the authors.

I started this book, really liked it, and about halfway through it realized that the author's message is one of doubt and questioning. There are some good messages in it, but wading through all the negativity was quite disheartening. For an atheist or someone just starting to think about prayer, the presentation of so many negative points of view might actually be comforting, as an echo of their own thoughts. For someone who doesn't need to be drawn in and convinced that there are some possible benefits to prayer, this book became a burden.

I do like the author's style of writing, and I believe he means well. There are some glaring errors when compared with what the Bible actually says about prayer. I found myself feeling sadder and praying less while reading this book. I had to shake it off. The book is definitely not for me. I ended up wondering which side of the issue he really falls on.