Why has God not answered my prayers? What should I be pray­ing for? If every­thing I prayed for came true, would I be ready?

In this spir­i­tu­al clas­sic, Eber­hard Arnold mines the rich­es of bib­li­cal teach­ing on prayer and the exam­ple of Jesus, the Hebrew prophets, and the ear­ly Chris­tians to point us back to the prayer that pleas­es God most – prayer that has the pow­er to trans­form our lives and our world.

In a new reflec­tive response, much-loved author Richard J. Fos­ter relates Arnold’s words to our con­tem­po­rary reality.

From Eber­hard Arnold’s clos­ing chap­ter, ​“Pray­ing for the Kingdom”:

Do we have the faith that through our prayer the sta­tus quo can be shat­tered? Can we believe that at our call Christ will come among us to judge and save? When we ask for the Holy Spir­it, are we ready for God to strike us like a burst of flam­ing light­ning, so that at last we expe­ri­ence Pen­te­cost? Do we real­ly believe that God’s king­dom is immi­nent? Are we capa­ble of believ­ing that through our plead­ing, this king­dom will break in? Are we able to believe that as a result of our prayer the entire his­to­ry of the world will be turned topsy-turvy.

Let us come to God in the absolute cer­tain­ty that Jesus’ words are true: ​“The king­dom of God has drawn near!” and, ​“If you have faith, noth­ing will be impos­si­ble for you.” Won­ders will take place, moun­tains will be torn from their place, and the whole sit­u­a­tion as it is on earth will be changed. Mighty things will hap­pen when we have faith.

2016