i have been wanting to read something on prayer for a while as this is an area of my life that i want to do well and in which there is always room for improvement. my sister-in-law recommended this one so i borrowed it from my dad and found it to be such an encouragement. it is an honestly written book with rich insights and practical ideas (like making 3x5 cards for all the people you pray for and adding verses and requests over time) all woven with stories about miller's family--his six kids and especially his autistic daughter. it was a refreshing read and one i will come back to. i was particularly convicted by the sections on cynicism...not realizing how much of our culture i allow to seep into my thinking...
"Cynicism begins, oddly enough, with too much of the wrong kind of faith, with naive optimism or foolish confidence. At first glance, genuine faith and naive optimism appear identical since both foster confidence and hope. But the similarity is only surface deep. Genuine faith comes from knowing my heavenly Father loves, enjoys, and cares for me. Naive optimism is groundless. It is childlike trust without the loving Father...Optimism rooted in the goodness of people collapses when it confronts the dark side of life...Our personal struggles with cynicism and defeated weariness are reinforced by an increasing tendency toward perfectionism in American culture. Believing you have to have the perfect relationship, the perfect children, or a perfect body sets you up for a critical spirit, the breeding ground for cynicism. In the absence of perfection, we resort to spin--trying to make ourselves look good, unwittingly dividing ourselves into a public and private self. We cease to be real and become the subject of cynicism...Cynicism is the air we breathe, and it is suffocating our hearts. Unless we become disciples of Jesus, this present evil age will first deaden and then destroy our prayer lives, not to mention our souls. Our only hope is to follow Jesus as he leads us out of cynicism...Instead of naive optimism, Jesus calls us to be wary, yet confident in our heavenly Father. We are to combine a robust trust in the Good Shepherd with a vigilance about the presence of evil in our own hearts and in the hearts of others. The feel of a praying life is cautious optimism---caution because of the Fall, optimism because of redemption. Cautious optimism allows Jesus to boldly send his disciples into an evil world."
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing - I feel the need in my prayer life for a booster shot such as this one. ;) Prayer has always been such a struggle for me. The "praying without ceasing" - the "let me absorb" while I wash dishes and children are screaming is easy. It's the other: deep, quiet, intentional prayer that is so hard. I'll have to check this out...and add it to my Amazon cart. (Along with half the books ever written by John Piper and Elisabeth Elliot, ha.)
i hope you do get to read it lauren...miller does a great job of explaining our need for the continuous prayer-thanksgiving, pleas for help, communion etc and also of designated time. i found it very helpful, though i still have a looong way to go!
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