Minister Max Lucado's new fictional book, Miracle at the Higher Grounds Café tackles people's concerns with unanswered prayers and hopes to inspire people to increase their faith in God.
The book follows the story of main protagonist Chelsea Chambers, who recently underwent a painful breakup with her star NFL husband. She picks up the pieces of her life and finds a job at the Higher Grounds Café, and her life starts to change after an angel in the guise of a customer enters the coffee shop, leading to a series of events that force the people there to seek answers to life's most challenging questions.
Lucado then talks to the Christian Post how many people desperately search for answers to their prayers, only to believe that these go unanswered because there are certain standards imposed by some people in order for their prayers to be heard.
"That's one of the most common struggles that people have," Lucado said. "They assume that their prayers are not heard because they didn't pray correctly."
He said that there are some Christian teachers who let believers feel that they need to be a certain way or attain a certain level with God in order for their prayers to be heard, but Lucado said that is completely missing the point.
"It's easy for people to draw the conclusion that prayer is a privilege for the uniquely skilled or the very pious people when really, in the Bible, the power of prayer is not in the one who says it, but in the one who hears it," he clarified. "Prayer is strong because God is strong. Prayer works because God works."
In his book, Chelsea's journey will make her realize that her answers get answered only if she is completely honest with it. The storyline is a reflection on Lucado's strong conviction that people should be honest with their conversation with God.
The author then shared that there is also a misconception that only long prayers are meaningful, and he said that he himself prays briefly.
"I don't pray for long periods of time. I do know people who do pray for 50, 60 or 70 minutes. My prayers are relatively brief. The times I really feel blessed through prayer is when my prayers are sincere - when I kind of think through what I'm going through, or I'm going through a hard time and I use that prayer to talk to God about everything," he said.
Lucado stressed that it does not matter how long or short a prayer is. What's important is that the prayer helped people connect to God.
