Aidan Rogers

Unfolded Hands: Rejecting Ritual and Returning to Prayer Aidan Rogers

Publisher Marketing: How then should I pray? It's a fair question. Prayer is the one Christian discipline that doesn't seem so clear-cut. If we go to church, there we are. If we read the Bible, here it is. If we give, love, serve, worship, we know that we have done these things. But how do we know if we've prayed? To help us understand this word, pray, we have ritualized the practice of prayer. We fold our hands, bow our heads, close our eyes, and ramble for a while until we find ourselves at an amen. Then we're left to wonder if God has heard us. It rarely seems He has. The ritual of prayer has all but taken the relationship out of our personal time with God. Prayer is a set of standards; we've lost the intimacy of the Infinite. And we're longing to get it back. Unfolded Hands is not another set of rules. It's not another book of guidelines for how we do this thing called pray. It is an invitation. It is an opportunity to set aside ritual and go back to the heart of prayer - talking to God. Having a conversation. Hearing Him speak. It is permission to pray the way your heart already wants to. The way God's people have always prayed. These are the stories of men and women praying powerful prayers, with unfolded hands ready to receive the answer. These are the stories of men and women in the Upper Room, in the lower valley, in the wilderness, in the Temple, on the streets of Jerusalem and anywhere else God would meet them who took the chance to call on His name, open their hands, and reach out to touch Him. These are the stories of a God who reaches back. Will you open your hands and pray?