Tag: Religion

“A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World” by Paul Miller

~ Bob Hayton ~ 4 Comments

Author: Paul Miler
Publisher: NavPress
Format: Softcover
Pages: 288
ISBN: 1600063004
Stars: 5 of 5

As a lifelong Christian, I’ve heard a great deal of teaching about prayer and read a good many books on the topic. I’ve been taught to model my prayers on The Lord’s Prayer. I’ve learned the ACTS method (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication). I’ve been encouraged to trust God for impossible answers, and above all, I’ve been made very aware of my spiritual shortcomings with regard to the discipline of regular, personal prayer.

Like many, I have tended to view prayer as a spiritual discipline I need to accomplish. So I try harder to do this prayer thing — this spiritual event accompanied by certain kinds of emotions and feelings. When I fail, I am overcome with guilt. When I don’t pray, I find it hard to start praying again. It seems I just never measure up to my perfect ideal of what my personal praying should be. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed wonderful seasons of prayer. I’ve had many spiritually high moments in prayer. I’ve seen God work through my prayers. But I don’t have the level of spiritual stamina at praying that I would like.

Given this context, I jumped at the chance to receive Paul Miller’s A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World, by NavPress, for free. The specific challenge was to read the book, and post about the results of a personal 30 days of real prayer, implementing the principles from the book in my own prayer life. Thanks again, Michelle Bennett for that challenge. I’m so glad I read this book.

A Praying Life is easily the best book I’ve read in the past several years. Miller speaks with an uncommon grace, and his book plants the spiritual discipline of prayer squarely upon the truths of the Gospel. A praying life is the goal, not regular disciplined moments of spiritual ecstasy. Miller’s book is distinguished from others I’ve read in that it stresses prayer’s connection with the gospel, it explains how a lack of prayer betrays a lack of dependence on God, and it illustrates through Paul Miller’s own personal family stories, how prayer connects with all of life. In short, the book makes a praying life seem real, and possible.

I wish I could say after these 30 days, that my prayer life has been completely revolutionized. But after reading the book, I can definitely say my thinking about prayer has. I want to share a few of the principles that came home powerfully to me as I read this book.

First, I was reminded that Jesus invites us to pray. And our prayer is part of a life lived in confidence in the Gospel.

Jesus does not say, “Come to me, all you who have learned how to concentrate in prayer, whose minds no longer wander, and I will give you rest.” No, Jesus opens his arms to his needy children and says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, NASB). The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy….

We know that to become a Christian we shouldn’t try to fix ourselves up, but when it comes to praying we completely forget that. We’ll sing the old gospel hymn, “Just as I Am,” but when it comes to praying, we don’t come just as we are. We try, like adults, to fix ourselves up.

Private, personal prayer is one of the last great bastions of legalism. In order to pray like a child, you might need to unlearn the nonpersonal, nonreal praying that you’ve been taught. (pg. 29-30)

Prayer mirrors the gospel. In the gospel, the Father takes us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of salvation. In prayer, the Father receives us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of help. We look at the inadequacy of our praying and give up, thinking something is wrong with us. God looks at the adequacy of his Son and delights in our sloppy, meandering prayers. (pg. 53-54)

Second, I was challenged to see that when I don’t pray, I am basically telling God I’m good enough that I don’t really need him. Ouch! This point has really revolutionized how I think about prayer. I have more of a desire to pray, even though I’m still not “good enough” at it. Although I’ll never really be good enough, still I want to show my dependence on God in praying constantly for specific help.

If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. You’ll always be a little too tired, a little too busy. But if, like Jesus, you realize you can’t do life on your own, then no matter how busy, no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray. Time in prayer makes you even more dependent on God because you don’t have as much time to get things done. Every minute spent in prayer is one less minute where you can be doing something “productive.” So the act of praying means that you have to rely more on God. (pg. 47)

Third, prayer really is about being helpless. We come to Christ in the gospel as a helpless sinner. We are to have faith like a helpless child. We should pray as helpless Christians. We really do need our Savior’s continual help! This last line should get the “duh!” award. But so often we live like we really don’t. The more mature we become as Christians, the more aware of our sinfulness and helplessness we should be. And thus we should pray more.

Fourth, I learned that “we don’t need self-discipline to pray continuously”. Instead “we just need to be poor in spirit”.

Poverty of spirit makes room for his Spirit. It creates a God-shaped hole in our hearts and offers us a new way to relate to others. (pg. 64)

If we think we can do life on our own, we will not take prayer seriously. Our failure to pray will always feel like something else “” a lack of discipline or too many obligations. But when something is important to us, we make room for it. Prayer is simply not important to many Christians because Jesus is already an add-on. (pg. 57)

A big theme of the book is how suffering is often the context where we learn to pray. It grows us and shows us our true need. It helps make prayer important.

Fifth, prayer is not about some special feeling or perfect spiritual experience.

Instead of hunting for the perfect spiritual state to lift you above the chaos, pray in the chaos. As your heart or your circumstances generate problems, keep generating prayer. You will find that the chaos lessens. (pg. 72)

Too often we seek the perfect spiritual state, when we really should just pray to God out of a heart full of need.

Sixth, I learned that prayer changes things. As we pray we should look for ways our prayers are having an effect. We should seek to use prayer to change the hearts of those we love. Our problems and all of life’s difficulties can be shaped and met with prayer.

When you stop trying to control your life and instead allow your anxieties and problems to bring you to God in prayer, you shift from worry to watching. You watch God weave his patterns in the story of your life. Instead of trying to be out front, designing your life, you realize you are inside God’s drama. (pg. 72)

That’s the secret of the praying life. It’s not your own story, it’s God. He becomes the One in control. By prayer we see Him working. By prayer we let Him into our lives.

Seventh, I was given a practical method of prayer which I’ve begun to adopt. He explains how to have a prayer card — a 3.5″ note-card — for each major area in life that you pray about. Have one for each of the members of your family and pray a specific verse for them. Add individual requests to the card over time. Keep track of answers to prayer. I’ve slowly begun to create cards and I find them easier to use than a prayer list. It’s more personal and focused on the subject or person at hand.

I’ve only scratched the surface of what is contained in the book. It is very readable, because Paul Miller interweaves personal stories of his children and life together with various prayers he has. He shows how prayer helped him deal with situations and persons. How prayer was answered slowly over time in the lives of his children. How prayer allowed him to parent well, and love others rather than react negatively.

I’m confident that if you pick up A Praying Life, your prayer life will improve as well. May God challenge us all to have praying lives.

Disclaimer: this book was provided by the publisher for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to provide a positive review.

This book is available for purchase at the following sites: Westminster Bookstore, Amazon.com, or direct from NavPress.

Nigerian Chuch Leader to Congregation: “Prepare to Die [for your Faith]”

~ Bob Hayton ~ 2 Comments

3 Nigerian pastors were recently beheaded. In the aftermath of that tragedy, according to The Daily Sun, church leaders addressed their congregations:

Also delivering a sermon during the funeral rites for late Rev. Sabo Yakubu, slain COCIN Church pastor, the speaker, Rev Bulus Azi urged Christians to emulate the pastors who were killed because of their refusal to betray their faith. Quoting from the bible in Revelation 7: 9-15, the regional chairman of the church told Christians to prepare to die anytime as their calling demand.

American Christians, let’s ponder this advice as we prepare to go to our churches this weekend. Remember others are dying for the faith we so readily take for granted. May we be stirred up to boldly proclaim the name of Christ as we think of the faith of these Nigerian pastors and others.

Dispensationalism Examined

~ Bob Hayton ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been caught up in a couple interesting articles over on Sharper Iron. One is a story of one man’s journey out of dispensationalism, another is a story of why a former Lutheran is a classic deispensationalist. The comments are a wild ride through a sticky debate, to put it mildly.

At some point I want to type out my own story of leaving dispensationalism. But for now, I thought I’d compile a few helpful resources on the Dispensationalism question. Of course you can check out that category in my own blog, but here are a few resources. If anyone else wants to share something along these lines, please chime in.

My friend Nathan Pitchford, of Psalm 45 Publications and Reformation Theology, has several excellent articles on the topic. His article on the Abrahamic Covenant sticks to the OT witness about that covenant and explains how it fits with Hebrews’ spiritual perspective on the land promise.

Vern Poythress has an excellent book about this issue, available for free online: Understanding Dispensationalists. He presents Scriptural arguments against Dispensationalism, but does so in a charitable and helpful way.

There are also several articles and resources on Dispensationalism compiled at Monergism.com.

I have also been greatly helped by O. Palmer Robertson’s books on the Scriptural covenants. I’ve reviewed his books The Christ of the Covenants and The Israel of God on my blog. His books influenced my series of posts called Understanding the Land Promise, which presents a good explanation of my views. I also once posted an excellent power point presentation, from a friend of mine, on how to view all of Scripture from a covenantal perspective. The presentation is called The Advance of God’s Kingdom, and I found it extremely helpful.

“The Gift of Psalms, with devotionals” by Lori Jones

~ Bob Hayton

Thomas Nelson, published this delightful devotional. The Gift of Psalms, is a book printed on special paper and with a deluxe smooth leather-ish cover. Included are three audio CDs with a reading from The Word of Promise Audio Bible coupled with a reading of the devotional thought from the book for that particular psalm.

The Word of Promise readings are from the New King James Version, which has a majestic quality about it when read aloud. The readings are done by various actors such as Sean Astin, Richard Dreyfuss, Joan Allen, and a variety of other names. The quality of the recordings are excellent, with some background majestic sounding classical music.

In the book, one page includes an excerpt from the psalm for that day, and the opposite page contains Lori Jones’ devotional. The devotionals focus on the theme found in the psalm for that day, but don’t hesitate to reference other Scriptures. At the end of each devotional is a short prayer in response to the reading.

The CDs include the entire Psalm, not just an excerpt, and fit nicely into the back cover of the book, in special slots. The book covers 50 Psalms, while the CDs cover 30. Even so, the book would make a great companion to a personal reading through the Psalms.

The only thing the book really lacks is a nice bookmark similar to what one would find in a Bible. It seems like it cries out for something like that, with each page being so glossy and thick, and with the fine finish.

This book is an excellent gift book, and I enjoyed reading it.

Disclaimer: this book was provided by the publisher for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to provide a positive review.

This book is still available for purchase at Amazon.com.

“The More I Read the Bible the Less Dispensational I Become”

~ Bob Hayton ~ 1 Comment

These words were posted in an article written by John Davis (B.A. , M.Div., Th.M., D.Min.) for Sharper Iron, describing his journey out of dispensationalism. His description of becoming less and less dispensational, fits my story. I’ve taken a similar journey out of dispensationalism.

His article is a good read, and the discussion to follow may well prove quite lively. Here’s another excerpt, and an encouragement to follow the discussion at Sharper Iron. For my take on dispensationalism, check out posts in that category, or my “Understanding the Land Promise” series.

Take, for example, the Apostle Paul’s discussion of the relationship of the law to saving faith, in Galatians 3. He introduces Abraham as a paradigm of saving faith and of inclusion in the promises of God. In the course of his discussion, the apostle makes interpretive statements based on his understanding of the Genesis passages. These reflect on the Abrahamic covenant. These statements are as follows:

  1. “Those who believe are children of Abraham” (Gal. 3:7).
  2. “The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you'” (Gal. 3:8).
  3. “Those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham” (Gal. 3:9).
  4. “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ” (Gal. 3:14).
  5. “The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say “˜and to seeds,’ meaning many people, but “˜and to your seed,’ meaning one person, who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16).
  6. “But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe” (Gal. 3:22).

…Relationship with Christ, established by emulating the faith of Abraham, guarantees one’s participation in the promises of the covenant. It is not the keeping of the law or physical descent from Abraham that constitutes one as a child of Abraham, but rather faith in Jesus Christ.

These verses sanction the redemptive nature of the Abrahamic covenant. They confirm that covenant as the unifying factor between Jews and Gentiles, and they substantiate the view that there is one people of God of all ages that share the covenants of Scripture which find their consummation in Christ.