A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World

I did not just read the book. I chewed and meditated my way through A Praying Life by Paul Miller. Unlike other books on prayer that I’ve read that seem to elevate prayer as something you should do or must do, Miller’s book describes prayer differently. It’s not a spiritual discipline to achieve or maintain.

Making “prayer” a goal such as “I need to pray more” misses the mark. Miller says our goal should not be prayer. Rather, our goal is knowing and loving God in a progressively deeper and intimate way. Focusing on prayer misses the person...

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I'm somewhat ambivalent about this book. Partly because many raving reviews led to high expectations on my part and partly because this is an odd book. The phrase that kept coming to my mind while I read it was "A Praying Memoir" for that's what it felt like. Though perhaps more often than necessary, Miller gave dozens of personal stories that gave the book a helpful, earthy feel. I appreciate the author's grittiness and willingness to take all the frustrations of a praying life seriously. The book was a strange mixture of really helpful thoughts followed by too many antidotes and personal details. I can however, see how this would appeal to some readers.Using the Lord's prayer in the Garden as the primary model, Miller's treatment of Biblical teaching on prayer was very sparse and thus widely assumed. This is not to say that he did not have some helpful observations, just that this work lacked a Biblical treatment of prayer. His focus was much more on how to fit that practically into life. It should also be noted that there are several places where it is evident that Miller has been influenced by the Mystics. His mystic streaks detract some from the value of this work.The most helpful parts of the book to me included his thoughts on what it means to become like a child in prayer, praying 'in God's story,' and his prayer card system.While reading "A Praying Life," I simultaneously read C.S. Lewis' "Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer" Though I wasn't expecting many similarities, these books couldn't be more different. Lewis' thoughts were, as one might expect, much more philosophical as Lewis tried to grapple with the many extravagant promises regarding prayer in the Scriptures. Lewis seemed unable to come away with many conclusions. This reminded me that the current corpus of literature has a massive gap regarding the subject of prayer. This makes me judge Miller's effort more positively because prayer is quite mysterious. There is something good to be said for Miller's admirable attempts to, in spite of many unresolved mysteries, provide us a gritty memoir of how to pray. Notwithstanding this commendable effort, may I suggest that the reception of this book suggests that the church needs to do a whole lot more thinking (& writing) on the subject of prayer?If you are looking for a deeply intimate, highly practical treatment of how to incorporate prayer into your life, this may be helpful to you. ( )

Books on prayer are a dime a dozen. This one added very little to the discussion. The thing that sets it apart from other books is the author's use of examples from the life of his autistic daughter. At times I wondered if I was reading a book on prayer or a book that related lessons taught to parents by autistic children. While some of the author's content was good, it was not presented in a unique manner. The author conducts prayer seminars, and the thought occurred to me as I was reading the book that he is probably better at conveying his thoughts audibly to an audience than in print. This book will appeal to many Christian readers, especially those who enjoy reading about special needs children. ( )

http://www.wordandspirit.co.uk/blog/2011/07/19/book-reviewa-praying-life-paul-mi... ( )

6/2011; Kindle