You cannot know what prayer is for until you know that life is war, not a domestic situation. Prayer is for calling in firepower on the battle

We're under attack here. We need fire power. We need cover

Come through now. What's the battle? The battle is to see him, know him, love him, treasure him. Why do you pray to God? Why do you trust God?

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper shows what the goal of all

are praying and trusting should be. This message was originally given in Phoenix, Arizona at

the Desiring God 2006 regional conference.

Now I'm jumping back to 1974 because I realized as I was walking through this I've thought about these before.

Where have I thought about this?

1973 December, my doctor father in Munich, Germany dropped dead running to catch a subway.

It was 63 years old, his name was Leonard Gopoldt, and I was on my way through a doctoral program and he died.

And in that system, your Dr Father died, you might as well pack it up.

And I'd invested three years of my life and I thought, oh my, what am I going to do?

Well, I don't need to give you the details of how God mercifully got me through, but here's the point. In replacing him for the year until they hired a new faculty

member in New Testament, they brought in Oscar Kulman from the University of Basel.

Now, Oscar Kuman was, for me, and I was going through seminary, a great name.

Christ in time, Redemptive History, in those days to read Oscar Kuman,

was like reading Don Carson in America

or some big world-class theologian, and they're going to bring him in and I'd get to sit in one of his classes my last semester while I was trying to finish.

And his class was the Gospel of John.

And Oscar Kouman was 80-some years old.

He was retired.

And I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of him in front of his books,

...