When I Pray, What Does God Do? - Softcover

Wilkinson, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 085721604X ISBN 13: 9780857216045

Publisher: Monarch Books, 2015

Synopsis

What happens when we pray? Does God always answer? Why does it sometimes feel like he doesn't? Scientific developments and daily encounters with the pain of unanswered prayer can leave us wondering what to make of the whole topic. Scientist and theologian David Wilkinson explores these thorny issues, sharing his insights and struggles as he engages with scientific questions, biblical examples, and his own, sometimes painful, experiences of answered and unanswered prayer.

About this title

From the Author

DAVID WILKINSON is the author of God, The Big Bang and Stephen Hawking and several other books. Professor Wilkinson has earned doctorates in both astrophysics and theology. He is principal of St John's College Durham, a commentator on popular culture, and a regular contributor to Radio 4's Thought for the Day.

Review

"This is an exciting book because it comes from a writer who has engaged deeply and skilfully with science, the Bible and human experience, and refuses to short-change any of them. The style is accessible, intelligent and humane, and the result is a book which will be profoundly helpful and encouraging to anyone trying to pray with both heart and mind." --John Pritchard, former Bishop of Oxford "

If you hope to find easy answers to questions on prayer or information on prayer techniques in this book, you will be disappointed. But easy answers often do not help in areas such as prayer in which most of us struggle, either in understanding or practicing it. This is a significant book that helps readers to think more deeply about prayer and to grow in their life of prayer. Using his considerable skills and experience as an accomplished scientist, able theologian, wise pastor and honest disciple of Christ, David Wilkinson tackles the question of prayer from various angles with wit and wisdom, unmasking popular myths, bringing out tensions, and offering assurances based on Scripture. Writing poignantly from his own personal experience, David Wilkinson addresses the reality of why God answers our prayers but also why our prayers often go unanswered. He is an astute guide who leads us to explore scientific ideas such as quantum physics and chaotic systems to shed some light to our quest. At the end, he brings us to the God of the Bible who cannot be put into a pigeon hole but who loves us and relates with us in His sovereign will as His story unfolds from creation to new creation. We are challenged to respond by trusting Him and expressing that trust through deepening and authentic prayer." --Bishop Robert Solomon, Bishop Emeritus of The Methodist Church in Singapore

In our complex and often confusing world, the tendency is to look for easy answers, avoiding the tough and perplexing questions that confront us. We simplify, formularize, regularize and codify; an exercise in reductionism that at times can be a mask for arrogance, self-deception or downright laziness. No area is this more evident than in the subject of prayer. In this highly readable and positively provocative book, When I Pray, What Does God Do?, renowned scholar, astrophysicist, theologian and pastor, Professor David Wilkinson, a man who is eminently qualified to do so, addresses this age-old and still thorny question; namely, the problem of how God responds to prayer. Professor Wilkinson tackles the subject with the rigor of a scientist, the spirit of a theologian, the heart of a shepherd and the humility of a disciple who is on a personal pilgrimage with Jesus. Blending his insights from the world of science and religion, and experience forged in the crucible of his personal walk, he highlights the dangers of following received wisdom, clinging on to discredited models, formulas, as well as false and unhelpful dichotomisations. He calls us to unlearn bad habits in prayer, and embrace fresh perspectives; with the assurance that God is still in the business of answering prayers. He reaffirms the biblical truth that God is God. He does as He chooses. He is the God of continuity as well as discontinuity. Therefore, science, which is descriptive rather than prescriptive, does not rule out miracles that God performs in response to prayer. It cannot define, restrict, prescribe or determine for God. We are invited to walk the walk of faith through the corridor of uncertainty, the pathway of vulnerability and the foggy lane of confusion, grappling with the challenges of answered prayer. The reader is called upon to constantly seek to have a bigger picture of the true and living God who is great and awesome, and ditch the personalised designer gods that we have created for ourselves. We are to big about God, pray big, and expect big. --Ben Witherington, III, Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary

About this edition

• Publisher: Monarch Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 085721604X
• ISBN 13: 9780857216045
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224