Brian's Reviews > A Praying Life: Connecting With God In A Distracting World

Unspeakably good. This book really grew with me every time I returned to the content.

I first was exposed to Miller and his message about prayer at a conference in my local community. I thought that it was the speaker's book, and so I came to the book with a very different set of expectations. I also have always struggled with the idea of a "personal relationship with God," since for me people speaking and responding to me is the main way I connect with them, and God does not normally do that. That and the characteristics of the speaker made me avoid this book. I probably have never made a bigger mistake.

I came to it a second time some years later, and was more sympathetic, having experienced a little more life experience. I also may have read Lindsey Tollefson's Psalms for Trials book, which is just fantastic and covers a lot of the same ideas (don't feel that your prayers are too small for God, trials are designed to make you depend on Him more, be regular and don't be ashamed because you have not been regular lately).

I got the book for Christmas one year and, after a year-long break, I finally hesitated back and forth and finally decided to dip into it. I love it now. The author is FAR from naive, but his basic point is that you need to be like a child. You need to regularly just present whatever you are feeling before God. There's more lessons, but that's step one. Because that's the theme, you can't dislike whatever he says.

But this time around I liked almost everything. He would talk about handling criticism, praying for other people without trying to "fix" them, unanswered prayers after long waiting, and all sorts of helpful wisdom. It also was a huge ethos boost that he was a dad with a child with a disability, which meant that he knew exactly what distraction is for families. He also lost his daughter to cancer and doesn't offer easy answers; but he knows who the answer is. There is no false spirituality. He even threaded the problems of charismatic idolization of intuition and he had a very sound way for parsing how to hear the voice of God. I am not sure I buy it completely, but I am aware that perhaps this is the result of cynicism (another theme he tears to pieces in a helpful way, while emphasizing we must be wise).

Despite being very child-like, he pops out odd-balls of wisdom like these, "Neoplatonism seeped into the church, equating spirituality with a suppression of desire and emotion. That's why Jesus comes across in so many films a bit strange and effeminate. He walks slowly, talks slowly, and moves slowly. You want to put a pin in him." Ouch!

And this: "The simplicity and clarity of God's word ... keeps me from getting lost in my feelings.... I wonder if the 'dark night of the soul' that many mystics experience is just getting lost in the darkness of their hearts." I laughed at that.

So this proved to be one of my favorite books. I won't be starting a prayer journal or a paper list (I prefer my cell-phone, which I can whip out of my pocket at any time), but this book encouraged me to pray. Indeed, one of my favorite points is that he says that ACTS is great (look it up), but you need to remember not all your conversations with God should be according to a schedule. Keep some of it freed up. Buy this book or let me lend it to you.