God's encounter with man

the long version

Aware of widespread confusion about prayer, the author examines at close range what prayer really is, why it is, and where the pray-er enters the scene. One of the startling revelations of this work is that prayer is not basically an unreal or thoroughly mysterious act, but one that is natural and spontaneous. Indeed, it is so natural that it is essential to the encounter not only between man and God, but between man and man. Without the medium of prayer, communication between men is virtually impossible. To reduce the necessity of prayer to basic terms, one can rightly say that if man fails at prayer, he fails as man.