In Constant Prayer

 

I am loving this book.  It is not quite what I was expecting.  But I am excited about it.  I know I have spoken with a friend or two about my frustrations with prayer and that’s why I chose this book to review (the formal review will be on Just Our Thoughts).  I wanted some more insight.  This book is part of a series called The Ancient Practices; Sabbath, the last book I talked about here, was also from that series.  I loved that book and learned a lot; I am applying much of it from my life, slowly.  I want to develop habits and make the practice meaningful in my life, so I must move slowly.  I feel the same process will need to be taken with this book as well.  Slow and steady!

 

This way of prayer – the prayer that has sustained the life of the faithful for centuries – has a way of sneaking up on you and not letting go. Which is what often happens when we come in contact with God. Communion with God is several things – predictable is not one of them. {page 11}

 

I found the above passage to be true in my studying of the weekly sabbath!  Here’s another passage that hit me.  I am learning, and I guess I always knew it, that we, as modern Christians, don’t pray enough, or correctly.  Now, I get that there is really no correct or wrong way.  But there is a better way, maybe.  A way that will get us closer to and in a better relationship with our Lord and Savior.  I want to find and learn and do that better way.  Here’s the passage from page 25:

 

In a very different context, the singer Michelle Shocked once said, ‘Politics and are are too important to be left to the professionals." This is not a jab at professionals; it is a call to amateurs.

The daily prayer of God’s people – the divine office, the liturgy of the hours, the work of God, morning and evening prayer, whatever name you want to use for it – is too important to be left to the professionals anyway. {page 25}

 

The topic of this book is the liturgy of prayer, the practice taken from Psalm 119 to prayer seven times a day.  The ancients set up seven specific times of day, or hours.  The traditional hours are: daybreak, before the workday begins, noon, midafternoon, sundown, before bed and midnight.  These are not commands by God, to pray at these times, but what a great idea.  The author of In Constant Prayer goes on to say on page 30 that “there is plenty of freedom to choose a regimen that allows for the shape and pace and structure of our individual daily lives.”

 

Lastly, I love how friendly this author is.  The following quote made me chuckle, but it’s so true!  We serve a GREAT and MIGHTY and GRACIOUS God!

 

The One who has drawn you to begin will guide you as you go along.

“If you ask for bread, will you get a stone?  How much more then can you trust your heavenly Father?” Those words from the Son of God suggest to me that God’s answer to the petition “o Lord, open our lips” is not likely to be, “I am sorry; you picked the wrong prayer book, and you are saying them seventeen minutes too late each day.”

Pick a set of prayers and begin.  IF we can be trusted to work our our own salvation with fear and trembling, as Saint Paul once wrote that we must, we can probably be trusted to pick out a prayer book. {page 41-42}

 

Still diggin',