Q. Could you recommend a good book about prayer to help me in my prayer-life?

A. Certainly. Go down to your local stationary shop and buy yourself a small notebook. Make sure every page is blank. Write down those areas that concern you about your prayer life, pray, and then write down the results. Keep doing this until your prayer life is full.

The books written by others about prayer may help from time to time. I, for one, have read Oswald Chambers' excellent book on this subject (Prayer: A Holy Occupation, Discovery House Pub., 1992) -- and as you may know, he was very pre-occupied with prayer. However, I must in all truthfulness say that his, and other books like his, have not had too much of an influence on my prayer life.

Prayer is an immensely personal thing and, I would venture to suggest, is as varied in its content and form as all the different personalities in the human race. (I am not here speaking of communal prayer). Prayer must come from within -- from the heart -- a book is no more helpful, in my opinion, than the words memorised by a suitor for his belovèd, if they are just words. It is for this reason that the New Covenant Church has no "prayer book" as, for example, the Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran confessions do, though we do have about half-a-dozen set prayers for the sacraments. Sometimes it is quite impossible to put words to our prayers -- Paul calls this an inner "groaning" (Rom.8:26). Most important is a consciousness of God while we think, meditate or supplicate.

And, of course, the best book of prayer is undoubtedly the Bible.

This page was created on 16 October 1997 Last updated on 26 February 1998

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