Living in the Spiritual

I thought it was time I stopped moaning about things that are unlikely to change and write something more thought provoking. Well, I have started reading a book about a guy called Rees Howells who was a famous intercessor and learnt very deep lessons about effective prayer and generally being totally submitted to God in every area of his life.
I realised as I was reading that I as well as many Christians are not even close to the sort of life and attitude that would make us really effective as Christians. When we pray, we often pluck prayer points off the top of our head and pray for all kinds of stuff, only to wonder why they are not always answered. If Jesus only said and did what His Father did, then shouldn't we do the same. These sorts of prayers are betrayed by people saying things like, "please keep them safe" when Jesus assured us that as Christians we would experience exactly the opposite since the world hates us (or should hate us). At best the prayer is pointless, at worse it damages our understanding of how God works and teaches those around us that God is the God of safety and comfort rather than suffering and discipline.
Another area where we often fall short is just in the day to day 'ministries' that we are involved in. If the spiritual world is more real than the physical and if the cross should be at the centre of our life, if we cannot please God without faith and if everything we do should be for the glory of God, why do we suppose that we can do 95% of it in human strength? We like to say things like, "God has given us common sense" or "I was led to do this" but what about the fact that God is not a God of recipes and tick boxes. What is correct for one person is not necessairly correct for another and just because God wanted you to feed the homeless yesterday doesn't mean that he now wants you to do that indefinitely. Do we honestly approach every situation in prayer? Do we even strive for it? Do we actually know what God's voice sounds like or do we rely on other people, emotional church experiences or theological knowledge to work out our next step in life?
I fear that we put too much emphasis on theological type learning and far too little on practical work related to hearing God's voice, dealing with blockages in our Christian life and learning how to be dynamic and Spirit led.
God be praised that He hasn't given up on us!!