Petersen on Prayer in "Quest for life at its best"

Writing about the prayer life of Jeremiah, who managed to live passionately and meaningfully for God in the face of the banality of so much of his generation, Petersen says,

"Jeremiahs secret life is a life of prayer. The cellar reality of Jeremiah's towering humanity is prayer. A look at Jeremiah in secret does not show him and a few cronies in a bull session swapping stories about God, catching up on some rumors of God. God is not someone or something to be talked about. Nor do we find Jeremiah in a library studying up on God. ....... God is not an idea to be studied. And we don't find Jeremiah at his desk with pen and paper using his sharp mind and comprehensive intelligence to work out the answers to the question of God.. (How can a good God permit evil?) God is not a problem to be solved.

What we find is Jeremiah praying: addressing God, listening to God. Prayer is the act in which we approach God as living person, a thou to whom we speak, not an it that we talk about. Prayer is the attention that we give to the One who attends to us. It is the decision to approach God as the personal Center, as Lord and Savior, [with]our entire lives caught up and expressed in the approach. Prayer is personal language caught up to the highest degree."