I've been starting the Ransomed Heart podcast off and on through the fall with a new opening that goes like this.

This is a gnarly time on the earth to be a human being for all sorts of reasons the pace of life

the tsunami of technology the assault on your attention and then frankly just the heartbreak of the world around us

the tragedy of every community delivered into our

mobile devices every day and and then the evil raging in the world. This is just a really hard time to be a human being and God cares about your humanity.

And maturity is not an option.

Wholeheartedness is not an option.

They are your rescue.

They are our safe place.

So welcome back friends to heart four

in a conversation on prayer,

which seems really appropriate to my introduction and it's the second

half of a conversation with Bart and Alex on our team here just kind of riffing on prayer in our lives and

what was our story with prayer and when did it get some traction and

what we find ourselves praying these days and we left last time with it kind of the mother of all prayer questions really is

what is prayer like how does it work Why does God insist on involving us?

Yeah, you know because Jesus said your heavenly father knows what you need before you ask?

So there's a great deal of passivity actually in large sections of Christ

that say right so why bother asking I mean God knows your needs he's either going to do

it or he's not. Or prayer is only asking. Prayer is, you know, here's my request,

here's my need, and then we sit back and wait and see whether God chooses to do anything

about it or not.

...