Can you relate with the disciple who asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray”? I know I can. I am currently reading A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller, which is helping me to better understand prayer and how vital it is in my relationship with God. I am becoming freshly aware of how very precious prayer is, and with that awareness, how vast God’s grace is. Here are a few tidbits from the book:
- “…prayer is all about relationship. It’s intimate and hints at eternity.”
- “Oddly enough, many people struggle to learn how to pray because they are focusing on praying, not on God.”
- “The only way to come to God is by taking off any spiritual mask. The real you has to meet the real God.”
- “We know we don’t need to clean up our act in order to become a Christian, but when it comes to praying, we forget that. We, like adults, try to fix ourselves up. In contrast, Jesus wants us to come to him like little children, just as we are.”
- “Many Christians haven’t stopped believing in God; we have just become functional deists, living with God at a distance… But as we learn to pray well, we’ll discover that this is my Father’s world. Because my Father controls everything, I can ask, and he will listen and act. Since I am his child, change is possible - and hope is born.”
I trust that these words are an encouragement to you. Let me know if you begin reading this book. I would love to talk of how we are learning to pray as we grow in our knowledge of grace.
I’m about half way through this book and I have found it very refreshing. I have read many books on prayer over the years and sometimes I feel like I’m just reading the same thing,but this book has given me a new perspective.