Timothy Keller

the beginning the feeling of poverty and absence usually dominates, but the best guides for this phase urge us not to turn back but rather to endure and pray in a disciplined way, until, as Packer and Nystrom say, we get through duty to delight.

Prayer means knowing yourself as well as God

the psalmist was spiraling down into deadly despair, he went in prayer to “the sanctuary of God; then I understood” (Ps 73:17).

Prayer, then, is a response to the knowledge of God, but it works itself out at two levels.

Prayer is continuing a conversation that God has started through his Word and his grace, which eventually becomes a full encounter with him.

for God, speaking and acting are the same thing.

O’Connor learned that prayer is not simply the solitary exploration of your own subjectivity. You are with Another, and he is unique. God is the only person from whom you can hide nothing. Before him you will unavoidably come to see yourself in a new, unique light. Prayer, therefore, leads to a self-knowledge that is impossible to achieve any other way.