Heather Bellamy caught up with Pete Greig about his new book and what prayer looks like in his life.

Pete Greig

Pete Greig is a writer, church planter and founder of the 24-7 Prayer Movement and he's just released his new book Dirty Glory. It's an autobiographical book that describes stories of transformation from the walled city of prostitution in Mexico, to the nightclubs of Ibiza and Heather Bellamy spent time chatting with him about the answers to prayer he's seen, how we can partner with God in prayer and why more spiritual authority is needed and not more hours praying.

Heather: What does prayer look like in your life? How do you pray?

Pete: I have certain sorts of rhythms and disciplines. In the morning I have a pretty standard time of prayer using the Bible and in the evening I tend to do an ancient thing called the Examine. I just replay the day and rejoice at the things God did and I repent where I messed up. Then I receive God's love and I resolve to be different tomorrow. Really though, for me, prayer is a continual conversation and so it's not just about those slots, but it's about trying to walk and talk with God in real time, through every moment of the day.

Heather: Do you always feel Him close when you pray, or are there times when you just pray and He feels a bit distant?

Pete: Yeah, feelings come and go, but our faith cannot be the puppet of our hormones, or the weather, or whether we've had a big dinner, or something like that. There are times in my marriage where I feel deeply in love with my wife and there are times when we're just talking about the shopping. Feelings vary, don't they? I think the key thing is that as we walk with the Lord over years, through the seasons of darkness as well as light, we grow in our relationship with Him. We can be aware of His presence all the time, even when we don't always feel it.

Heather: What answers to prayer have you seen over the years?

Pete: I've got loads of answers to prayer. The amazing thing about prayer is that it works. It doesn't always work the way we want it to, but Dirty Glory is stuffed with stories that will fry your noodles and set your hair on fire. There's a story about a friend of ours in Switzerland, who had 28,000 Swiss francs materialise in her kitchen cupboard on four separate occasions. There's a story about someone who received a dream about a massacre at the Super Bowl; went out and prayed against bloodshed and the next day, on the very spot where they stood to pray, a man was arrested with an AK47, about to shoot people. There's a story about a guy who was a hippy in Oregon who came to know Jesus. He was farming marijuana on an industrial scale and so now he's a Christian, he set fire to it all and he knelt down and he prayed, "God let this be an aroma pleasing to you". He gave God the biggest joint He's ever had. I could go on and on.

The book is full of stories and the miracles that happen when we say yes to God. You know real prayer, Heather, is not trying to get God to say amen to the things I want; real prayer, real miracles are when we say amen to the things God wants.

Heather: Who is God, why does He answer prayers?

Pete: God is the creator of the universe. When we try to understand who God is, Christians believe that the best picture you can possibly get is to look at Jesus Christ who claimed to be the Son of God. In Jesus we see that God is love; we see that God is forgiving; we see that God hates injustice; we see that God champions the underdog and that He goes after those who are lost.

To have a relationship with the God who made you, is the most wonderful thing and also the most natural thing. If you imagine God made you and that you did nothing to deserve being born, isn't it weird that some people try to live their lives as if He's not there? So to be a Christian is not to be all weird and religious, it's to live in relationship with God. A key to relationship is talking to Him and listening to Him. That's prayer. It'd be weird if I didn't talk to my wife, you'd think we had a weird relationship. It's the same with God and that's why prayer is so natural and so important.

Heather: Sometimes prayers don't get answered, or don't get answered in the way that we'd hoped. Have you had prayers that haven't seemed to be answered and how do you walk that with God?

Pete: My last book, God on Mute, was all about unanswered prayer and exploring that question. I was speaking very honestly about the fact that my wife has been very chronically ill and has nearly died a number of times. I'm in this weird position, where on one hand I'm one of the leaders for a global prayer movement, so I am daily hearing the most incredible and miraculous answers to prayer, but at the same time, some of my deepest prayers for my own wife's health haven't been answered.

You know, real discipleship is about living in the paradox of the things God has done, but also the things He hasn't done yet.