I chanced upon this book from Crossway’s book recommendation received in my email. The title caught my attention because it is somewhat similar to our prayer retreat theme this year. When I read the short book introduction, this sentence struck me, “When you pray, does it ever feel like you’re just saying the same old things about the same old things?” I don’t know about you, but I do have this problem. And I thought this was certainly a book I would like to read. I suggested to the church library to get a copy. Later, I realised that our library has a copy and five persons had actually borrowed it. The first was way back in June 2016 and the other four, this year from April to August. Interesting borrowing pattern.
The author starts off with a very basic, yet thought-provoking question, “Since prayer is talking with God, why don’t people pray more? Why don’t the people of God enjoy prayer more?” And he answers his own question, “And the reason they don’t feel like praying is that when they do pray, they tend to say the same old things about the same old things.” I think this is certainly one major reason people are not too enthusiastic to pray.
To the author, the solution has to be fundamentally simple. Since God invites all His children to pray, then prayer must be essentially simple. If God invites and expects all His children, regardless of age, IQ, education or resources, to do the same thing – to pray – then prayer has to be simple. Sounds very logical to me.
He then proposes the solution of using the Bible to pray. And of course, the best place for learning to pray through a passage of Scripture is in the book of Psalms. For the rest of the book, he shows us how to use the Psalms to pray about our prayer needs. He also shows how to use the same methodology to pray other parts of the Bible, like the New Testament epistles and teachings, and even the narratives.
There is also a chapter for us to practise to pray using the method, and another chapter to evaluate our experience. I tried it and it was a refreshing experience, definitely something really good to know and use.
So, if you want to learn how to pray the Bible, this is certainly a book I will recommend you to read and, of course, practise. By the way, it is a very thin book (just to motivate you to read it)
This book review was written by Elder Tah Wee, January 2019.
