Prayer continued

I'm reading this book called hearing God. Sometimes it dawns on me how elementary it can be... How do we expect to hear from someone we are not talking/listening to? PRAYER-- why is it such a hard concept for me to grasp?! -- I'm learning that just because God and I do not agree on the way that he is answering my prayers does not give me the right to stop praying. As Richard Foster says - "To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. In prayer real prayer we begin to think God's thoughts after him; to desire the things that he desires, to love the things that He loves, to will the things that He wills. Progressivly we are tought to see things from His point of view." WOW -- isn't that what we all want!

Utmost May 26
Our thinking about prayer, whether right or wrong, is based on our own mental conception of it. The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts. Our blood flows and our breathing continues "without ceasing"; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops. And we are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect oneness with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer. "Pray without ceasing . . ."— maintain the childlike habit of offering up prayer in your heart to God all the time.
Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer. He had the unlimited certainty of knowing that prayer is always answered. Do we have through the Spirit of God that inexpressible certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when it seemed that God did not answer our prayer? Jesus said, ". . . everyone who asks receives . . ." ( Matthew 7:8 ). Yet we say, "But . . . , but . . . ." God answers prayer in the best way— not just sometimes, but every time. However, the evidence of the answer in the area we want it may not always immediately follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger we have is that we want to water down what Jesus said to make it mean something that aligns with our common sense. But if it were only common sense, what He said would not even be worthwhile. The things Jesus taught about prayer are supernatural truths He reveals to us.