Authors: Phillip D. Jensen & Tony Payne
Publisher: Matthias Media
ISBN: 1921068280
Do you ever feel as if your prayers are weak and ineffectual, or dare you say it – a waste of time? Are you ever stumped about what to say to God? Surely He knows everything anyway…!
Our prayers say a lot about our relationship with God, and our mind-set as Christians. This book answers these questions and more, and will encourage you to kick-start (or re-start) your prayer life. For the Christian, prayer is both a command and a blessing – and perhaps surprisingly, not just an optional extra.
“It’s our relationship of dependence upon God expressed in words. Prayer is audible faith.”
After all, relationship requires communication! Jensen and Payne remind us that prayer is purely and simply ‘asking God for things’. They go on to explain the two types of things we should be asking for, i.e. the desires of God and the anxieties of life.
I especially enjoyed the chapters ‘Why We Don’t Pray’ and ‘What Happens When We Pray’. Before reading this book, I had the idea that God would not interfere in the laws of nature that he has set down, and wondered if prayer was even worth it if God’s plan is sovereign and unchanging. I hadn’t realised that I had picked up some worldly views of prayer rather than God’s view as explained in the Bible, and that I was in fact limiting God. I had also subtly bought into the “name and claim it” view of prayer, which suggested that I hadn’t received what I’d asked for because my faith wasn’t strong enough. The book helped me to see that by thinking this way, I had in fact made prayer about “me and my faith” instead of “God and His grace”.
I think the authors could have written a bit more on how to pray in a group – I often feel as if I’m on show or fake when I pray with other Christians, and it makes my lips seize up.
Overall, the book is easy to read and a chapter is short enough to finish in a day. There’s an excellent summary of all the main points at the end of the book; I’m going to photocopy it and keep it handy! Also useful is a list of prayers from Scripture to use as examples. And that’s not all, folks – there are even discussion questions for each chapter, to do on your own or with a Christian friend.
I’m definitely going to read this little gem again.
Prayer and the Voice of God is available at the St Stephen’s bookstall for R84.
