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Tavis: Patricia Raybon is a professor of journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder and an award-winning writer of the book 'My First White Friend: Confessions of Race, Love, and Forgiveness.' Her latest book, though, is called 'I Told the Mountain to Move,' which details how she relearned the power of prayer. Professor, nice to have you on the program.

Patricia Raybon: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Tavis: I'm glad to have you. I want to get to this notion of relearning. I'm fascinated by that phraseology--relearning how to pray. Before I do that, though, take me back and recollect for me your first memories of praying and prayer.

Raybon: Church, northeast Denver. A little church where we were taught an interesting theology of prayer: just tell Jesus what you want. We used to sing a song: 'Jesus is on the mainline, tell Him what you want.' That's a nice song, but that's not what Jesus said. He said, "If you abide in me and your word abides in me, then ask whatever you will, and it will be done." That's just one condition of prayer, and I had a lot to learn.

Tavis: Well, you say, then, that later on in life you had to relearn prayer. Before I get into what brought you to that phrase, that place, tell me about that phrase when you say you had to relearn how to pray.

Raybon: Well, the disciples had to learn how to pray, too. You know, they looked at Jesus healing people, saving people, redeeming people, and they discerned that they couldn't do that, and the secret was the way he could pray. And one of them finally said, "Rabbi, teacher, Lord, teach us how to pray." and I had to ask the same question, and that's where the journey started.

Tavis: I assume, though, when you say, "relearn," that means that you think that you didn't get it right the first time.

Raybon: Didn't get it right.

Tavis: Do many of us not get it right the first time?

Raybon: I'm gonna say 90% of us don't get it right.

Tavis: That's a high number.

Raybon: Most of us don't pray. People who say they believe in God, I would say most of those people don't know a thing about prayer. Not because they're not good people. Not because they don't know--want to know how to pray, but they're not taught.

Tavis: OK, what are we not taught about how to pray?

Raybon: There's a protocol, there are conditions, and a big lesson for me was that prayer's not so much about talking, it's about listening. It's about moving into the--the 17th-century clerics used to call it practicing the presence of God. And our culture's not familiar with practicing the presence of God because it takes time. It takes time that most of us don't want to give. I like thinking about Jesus healing people all day, and then the bible says he would go up into the hills by himself to pray. And while he was up there, night fell. Well, we don't give that kind of time to sitting down to eat a meal, to talking to people we say we love. Well, to pray that kind of prayer takes time, and that's one place where most of us don't even start.

Tavis: Although you're not suggesting--and I think I understand your point. You're not suggesting, though, that one has to set aside that kind of time every day to learn how to pray.

Raybon: Yes, I am saying that.

Tavis: You are?

Raybon: Yes, I am.

Tavis: So you're telling me that when something--when I'm confronted with something in a right now space, in a right now situation, and I ain't got 5 hours to go up in the mountains to pray, that my prayer don't get through? I don't believe that.

Raybon: No. I'm saying that's how we learn to pray. That's how we learn to listen. I gave a talk at a seminar recently, and the emcee was introducing people, and she said, "We have a great treat today." and I thought she was talking about me, but she was introducing a surprise guest. Right away, Tavis, I could feel myself feeling envious because I thought I was being upstaged.

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Raybon: And so I began to pray. I asked the Lord to take that feeling out of my spirit and help me get into His order for the day and help me enjoy the music and what I hadn't expected. And as I began to go in that flow because I practice the presence of God and I know how to hear it all the time in a rush or with time on my hands, I could feel myself start to relax and start to enjoy it, and do you know that person's last song led right into the point that I wanted to make in my talk?

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Raybon: I can't get there unless I practice prayer every day.

Tavis: Tell me why it is that most of us discover the power of prayer? Most of us are challenged or faced with the reality that we, to use your phrase, have to relearn how to pray? We find ourselves in difficult and challenging situations. 'Cause you went through the same thing in your process of relearning how to pray. Why is it we're always brought to that place through that very same journey?

Raybon: Well, the God who created us made us very strong-willed, and we don't easily give up that will until we're brought to our knees, and I'm sure God knows that and set it up that way. So then when we get to that moment of surrender, we're finally ready.

Tavis: Tell me, then, more about your story--about what was taking place in your life that brought you to this place of having to relearn how to pray and the power of it?

Raybon: I live a modern life. I have modern problems--struggles with my marriage, conflict with grown daughters. One of my daughters left the church and converted to Islam. I always had a complicated relationship with my mother--none of these mountains necessarily extraordinary. But what was interesting to me is that my prayers didn't move the mountains, and that's when I got interested. What didn't I know about the secrets of prayer? And that's what brought me to this interest, to this study.

Tavis: Mm-hmm. You think that most of us have to face the same kinds of personal dilemmas to get to this place?

Raybon: I think most of us are struggling in our central relationships. Most people are stuck, in fact, in the drama of their households, and they never get beyond that. I was on a show in Denver last week--a Christian talk show that takes prayer requests. 9 of the 10 prayer requests were about money...

Tavis: Mm.

Raybon: And I was thinking how, the prayer principle of being gracious and being thankful hadn't seemed to occur to people who were asking the Lord to bless their finances. But how many of those people had asked God to make them better stewards of what he had already given them?

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Raybon: So we get stuck in places that feel like mountains that we can't move. God can move all of those mountains. But what he's waiting for us to say is "How can you use me with the things you've already given me? How can I bless somebody with the way I've already been blessed?"

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Raybon: It's about asking the right prayer.

Tavis: I'm glad you said that because this might be in politic. In fact, it is in politic. But I think it's real.

Raybon: All right.

Tavis: I think that to the point you made a moment ago about these callers, 9 of 10 calling in asking for money, I don't blame the parishioners. I don't blame the people for that singularly, and I wonder whether or not you'd agree, disagree. I'm fascinated by your response to this. I put a lot of that at the blame of these prosperity preachers who we see on television all the time.

Raybon: Do we have to go there?

Tavis: Yes, we have to go there. But I think a lot of people--I'm one of them--have a real problem with that, where what you get is a prosperity message, and the whole modus operandi, the whole goal these days seems to be to have a mega-church out in the suburbs or somewhere and then preach to 20,000 people this prosperity message, and so what you're talkin' about, I don't hear enough of that, either. So I don't blame the people for that. They're gettin' that from somewhere.

Raybon: They are, and the sad part about it is that, materially in this country, even the poorest person has clean water. Well, most of the people in the world don't have clean water to drink. Most of the people in the world won't eat more than one meal, if they eat that, today. Most of the people in the world tonight won't sleep in a dry bed with a intact roof. So the travesty of that prosperity message is that we're telling people who are already materially blessed that they need more, when, in fact, most people haven't done what they could do with what they already have.

Tavis: Course, the flip side of that is that, you know--and what the essence of their message is, that God wants you to have the best, and I can accept that, too. What's wrong with that? Doesn't he want me to have the best? And if he does, why shouldn't I pray and ask Him for it?

Raybon: Well, he wants us to have the best for His glory, for His Kingdom. And so the prosperity message tends to stop short of that and just talk about getting for the sake of getting. But the thing about prayer is that we don't pray to get. We pray to change, and then as we change, our prayers change. And the bible puts it like this: when we obey His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight, then we receive whatever we want from Him for His glory.

Tavis: Right. Tell me--my time's about to get away from me here. Tell me 3 things right quick that people can do immediately if they want to relearn how to pray properly.

Raybon: Take the time.

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Raybon: Ask God to tell them how to pray if they don't know how to do that. Forgive. I love that verse that says, "When you stand praying, first forgive." We hear these lessons all the time, but when we don't know how to do them, then that's exactly how we pray. "Lord, I want to pray, but I don't know how to do it. I don't know what it means to forgive. I don't exactly know what it means to love." When I was struggling to get along with my mother in her 80s, the Lord said, "Don't ask the question anymore. Just do the love. Wash her feet. That's a place to start."

Tavis: Mm-hmm. Thank you for that good advice. I think we both agree, though, that even in today's world, prayer...

Raybon: Changes things. Yes, it does.

Tavis: It still works. That's good to know. The book is 'I Told the Mountain to Move,' and, apparently, it did. Patricia Raybon is the author of the book, a professor of journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Professor, nice to have you on the program.

Raybon: Thank you.

Tavis: Up next on this program, actor Ted Danson. Not comedy, but a fascinating piece on Showtime. Stay with us.