Prayer - Who's Talking?

Richard Foster in Prayer, Finding the Heart's True Home writes:

"Prayer takes place in the middle voice," writes Eugene Peterson. In grammar the active voice is when we take action, and the passive voice is when we receive the action of another, but in the middle voice we both act and are acted upon. We participate in the formation of the action and reap the benefits of it. "We neither manipulate God (active voice) or are manipulated by God (passive voice). We are involved in the action and participate in its results but do not control or define it (middle voice)."

Prayer fascinates me. We, the created, are able to communicate with the Creator! The significance of that is rarely considered when we enter into prayer with a group.

Here’s another quote from Foster’s chapter on The Prayer of Rest.

P. T. Forsyth writes, “When we speak to God it is really the God who lives in us speaking through us to himself… The dialogue of grace is really the monologue of the diving nature in self-communing love.” How incredible!

I agree – how incredible!