Praying Life, A: Connecting with God in a Distracting World

Product Information

Praise God for this truth, but Miller emphasizes this to the point of making it sound like we should make a principle of sloppy, meandering prayers. In many cases, I found myself puzzling over whether the powerful and striking claims were warranted (e. Then, as soon as he sat down, his autistic daughter began to pace upstairs, so she had to yell at her to go back to bed. The closer something is to the character of God, the more it reflects him and the less it can be measured. I have been a Christian for over 25 years, but I have always struggled to have a meaningful, consistent prayer time.

Yet the whole time I was reading his prayer scenario, all I could think was "This is not how prayer is supposed to be" and "This is not what God would want for prayer time". If you’re putting effort into obeying, then you must be doing it by your own strength; you just need to focus on the Gospel more, and then sanctification and holy living will just sort of flow out of you. The author apparently wrote about the interruptions from his autistic daughter to show that prayer time may not be perfect. This handy, pocket-sized primer is an easy way to inspire someone who is new to prayer, or to reignite passion in someone who is stuck in attempts to develop a consistent prayer life. We watch and wait with wonder in our prayer lives asking if our prayers will remain unfinished (either in our own lives or others).Cynicism begins, oddly enough, with too much of the wrong kind of faith, with naive optimism or foolish confidence. There's hard stuff in here too: and I don't mean hard to understand, I mean hard in actual experience. Like me, you've probably read other books on prayer, only to shortly thereafter end up right back where you began. It might be true, but I think I’m underlining it just ‘cuz is sounds kinda cool and I could put it on Twitter.

There are numerous practical tips in the latter chapters that are very helpful to anyone seeking to grow in prayer. The narration can at times feel a little monotone but overall it helps in the reflection of the words themselves. If you read any of Paul’s writing, you’ll quickly see that he loves to tell stories—most of which start with his own failures and mishaps and end with God’s faithfulness. Miller is absolutely right to point out how seed thoughts in the Enlightenment can undermine a fresh faith in God's world, but he gives the impression he is writing off the whole of the Enlightenment which is regrettable.Watch out for teaching that contradicts Scripture’s teaching on sanctification: “It is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God” (1 Timothy 4:10). Stormie Omartian's bestselling The Power of a Praying series (more than 23 million copies sold) is rereleased with fresh new covers and new material to reach a still-growing market of readers eager to discover the power of prayer for their lives. Miller impresses upon you that the crowning achievement of godliness in your life is to be “authentic.

With the Good Shepherd no longer leading us through the valley of the shadow of death, we need something to maintain our sanity. Beginning a Praying Life makes for a practical handout to begin a lifelong change of heart about why and how to pray.He talks about creating prayer cards to flip through every time you pray, focusing on all the individuals close to you, cards for areas of your life you want to improve, and cards for friends and non-believers, and to pray the prayers on these cards over and over. It’s not exactly “devotional” literature, but it is geared towards drawing its readers into prayer, and Miller predominantly communicates through anecdote and personal experience (which seems to be the th ang to do these days if you’re hoping any Evangelical will read your book). Paul Miller’s gift in this book is to bring prayer into the realm of a real person’s real life by lifting the burden of legalism and formulas and the notion that there’s a right way to pray and a wrong way to pray. If you were to ask the average Christian on the street for a list of the top five things they struggle with, I'm willing to bet that prayer will more often than not appear at the top of that list. They are as follows: * Introductory material (Preface, Introduction, Chapters 1-2) * Part 1: Learning to Pray Like a Child (Chapters 3-8) * Part 2: Learning to Trust Again (Chapters 9-11) * Part 3: Learning to ask Your Father (Chapters 12-18) * Part 4: Living in your Father's Story (Chapters 19-25) * Part 5: Praying in Real Life (Chapters 26-32) Paul shares what he has learned over a lifetime of pursuing God in prayer.

Prayer is so hard that unless circumstances demand it—an illness, or saying grace at a meal—most of us simply do not pray. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. Miller’s book “A Praying Life” does a masterful job of walking us through what God has taught the author through his personal prayer life and a deep study of the God’s teachings about prayer. Churches that are true change agents in their communities are congregations for whom prayer is a way of life. By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file.

I recommend this book to anyone who would like to be engaged in prayer but feels discouraged, distant, confused, too tired or bored with the whole idea. I'm not totally convinced (Hell will freeze over before I start praying for parking spaces), but this book challenged me, at the least, to attempt to re-establish a personal relationship with God. This book reminds readers that prayer is simply making conversation with God a rhythm of daily Christian life. At first glance, genuine faith and naive optimism appear identical since both foster confidence and hope. Now with added chapters on prayers of lament and further guidance for using prayer cards, Paul Miller introduces us to prayer that regularly and consistently hopes, trusts, and expects God to act.