Does it make any difference?

At 614 Vancouver we have a 24-7 prayer room (The War Room) that has been running for almost three years. You'd think after doing many shifts in this room that one would feel like an 'expert' at praying but often I feel as though I'm such an amateur.

I'm currently reading "Prayer: Does it make any difference?" by Philip Yancey and wanted to share something of his writing:

I have learned to see prayer not as my way of establishing God's presence, rather as my way of responding to God's presence that is a fact whether or not I can detect it....
My feelings of God's presence - or God's absence - are not the presence or the absence.

Sometimes in a War Room shift, when I'm finding it difficult to pray, I feel as though God isn't there in a sense; it's as if His presence depends on whether I'm sensing Him or not. I think that if I take what Yancey has said and always see my prayers as 'a way of responding to God's presence,' I will likely start detecting Him more clearly. It's as if my pressing in, not giving up, believing in what I haven't seen establishes the connection... grants me clearer vision... gets the wax out of my ears so to speak.

Rise up. Press in. Pray even when your every feeling tells you not to.