ELIZABETH SHERRILL, co-author of The Hiding Place and The Cross and the Switchblade, once emphasized in a workshop on "Writing from experience" that readers like to be able to identify with an author's "struggle" to clarify a book's purpose or message. In other words, readers are less likely to be concerned with hearing from a so-called expert than identifying with the way a writer "changes and grows" through the story.

Philip Yancey appears to have absorbed that lesson well during his writing of 18 books, including Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? In this latest offering, he admits he has never stopped struggling with the act of prayer. He says he has had "seasons of contentment and gratitude, and seasons of anguish and dereliction." He has faced "mindless distraction and acute concentration, flashes of joy and bouts of irritation."

Right up front, Yancye concedes that his main qualification for writing about prayer is that he feels unqualified—but genuinely wants to learn. "More than anything else in life," he says, "I want to know God." He talks openly about his own "erratic prayer life," but sees it as a time when God has worked to "smooth the rough edges."

And this brand of honesty is delighting his readers. No one identified with his new book more readily than the reader who told Yancey, "At last, a book on prayer that doesn't make me feel guilty!"

Reader involvement in Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? is facilitated by sidebars every six to eight pages, in which people from many walks of life, and from different cultures and circumstances, describe how prayer brought healing to their lives. For example, from Ukraine comes a heartfelt admission, "We are just now discovering the privilege of talking to God as to a friend." And from a man who found God during a rally in a football stadium: "I ... pray about everything. ... I treasure the time I spend with God more than the requests I want Him to fulfill."

Yancey also leans heavily on the wisdom of famous thinkers such as Martin Luther, Frederick Buechner, C. S. Lewis, Henri Nouwen, Andrew Murray, Leslie Weatherhead, and Desmond Tutu. The poets he quotes range from John Milton to Emily Dickinson, and George Herbert to Garth Brooks. He has compiled no fewer than 16 pages of source and reference material, which, for me, are like the shelves of a spiritual candy shop.

At no point does Yancey duck the tough questions in titles and subtitles: "Unanswered prayer: Whose fault?" Or: "What exactly should we pray for?" Or: "Do I wrongly blame God for causing the suffering?" And he openly admits that even after years of research and writing, he still has many unresolved questions—"so many laments and regrets"—that he scarcely knows where to begin.

Then Yancey remembers with a start whom he is talking to, "the One who spun out galaxies and created all that exists." At last, he says, "Objections fade away, doubts dissolve, and I imagine myself falling back on words akin to Job's: 'Now I get it.'" He knows that the main purpose of prayer is not to make life easier, but to know God. "I need God more than anything I might get from God," he writes. "Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God's point of view."

In a Sentinel interview, I asked Yancey how writing this book had changed his own practice of prayer.

"I no longer view prayer as it's usually termed, a spiritual discipline," he said. "Most of us don't like disciplines. I see it as a spiritual privilege." He suggested that we are the ones who suffer if we don't pray, and who benefit if we do. "We have the amazing privilege of inviting God into the details of our lives, and asking to see the world through God's perspective. Prayer provides that link.

"I've also begun decompartmentalizing prayer," Yancey continued. "I've always had a regular morning time in which I pray through the day, anticipating chores, contacts, and all that might await me. I still do that, but am far more likely to tune in to God's presence throughout the day at spontaneous times. The more I do that, the more integrated my life becomes."

That integration is evidenced on almost every page of this engaging—and spiritually challenging—book. css