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Hard prayer?
As a child I was told that if I prayed really hard, my prayers would be answered. So when I really wanted something, I’d close my eyes and pray with clenched fists and a scrunched-up face, straining as hard as I could.
Needless to say, that approach didn’t work. At one point, someone said maybe I needed a stronger faith. Later on, I laughed when I heard about “teabag Christians” who only pray when things begin to boil. So for a long time prayer puzzled me: it was either hard or easy, or a last resort. In Sunday School I learned that Jesus made prayer and faith seem easy, saying mountains could be moved with an amount of faith as tiny as a mustard seed (see Matthew 17:20), and promising that if I believed in the Christ, I could do what he did, like walk on water or raise the dead (see John 14:12). I wondered, could prayer really do that?
About the author
George Zucker lives in Audubon, Pennsylvania.

December 30, 2013 issue
View Issue-
Letters
Leslee Allen, Bruce Higley, Barbara Presler, Steven Price, Catalina
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Mental health—on whose terms?
Iain Napier
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Hard prayer?
George Zucker
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Double trouble or single-mindedness?
Cynthia Clague
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Turkey tracks and seeking God
Sue Holzberlein
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Morning stillness
Text and photograph by Steve Ryf
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Forever—and today
David Evans
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The gospel-centered church
Kim Shippey
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Health care reform law—brief update
Gary Jones
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Traveling with Love
Ann Sarkisian
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God meets all our needs
Grace Njuakom
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Unscathed after a collision
Susan Breuer
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Painful gums healed
Reesa Jones
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Freed from stomach and throat conditions
Estela Madrigal Albarrán
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Childlike discovery
The Editors