Experiencing God Through Prayer

Every night when my wife and I put our kids to bed, we read them a Bible story and I say a prayer with them.  Friends have talked to me about how meaningless some bed time prayers were for them growing up. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep..."  Recently, I have been spending some time each night, going through different parts of the Lord's Prayer with my kids.  The exercise has challenged me to pray more biblically, and forced me to get clear on praying biblically so I can teach my kids how to pray.  This whole initiative began for me through reading Tim Keller's new book on Prayer.

I highly recommend this book for many reasons.  Firstly, Keller anchors prayer so deeply into Scripture and explains why this is so important.  Many of the "prayer fads" around today talk about expressing ourselves, but Keller does a masterful job of teaching why prayer is "answering speech".  First we need to hear from God through His Word, immersing our thoughts with His thoughts and then respond to God's voice in prayer.  Keller teaches that our prayers need to address the God who reveals himself, not the God we construct through our own imagination and experiences.

One of my favorite parts of this book is the section on the Lord's Prayer.  Keller talks about how the Church has been catechizing it's members since the Reformation with the Lord's Prayer (Luther's Shorter Catechism), and by learning principles found in the Lord's Prayer, our prayers are anchored in God's character rather than our whims.

My prayers can be so rote and academic, this book challenges me to experience God's holiness and love as I persevere in prayer and seek to experience God's presence.  I highly commend Keller's book to you.  I read a library copy of this book, then bought my own copy and now I am using it in my small group.  We never outgrow our need to learn about prayer, and Keller's book takes my understanding about prayer to a new level.

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