Developing a Healthy Prayer Life

Developing a Healthy Prayer Life: 31 Meditations on Communing with God, James W. Beeke and Joel R. Beeke (Reformation Heritage Books, 2010)

A talk series on prayer has led me again to investigate resources for prayer. I have come across some good ones.

This very short offering (under 100 pages) is designed to be used as a devotional, with 31 brief chapters covering numerous aspects of prayer. Starting with a definition of prayer as “the act of forging a connection between two specific points: our human needs and the resources of God offered to us in Christ”, it’s then extended to include expressing desires to God, embracing God’s will, confession, and worship. The reader is invited to be both challenged and encouraged by prayer, and to be changed by it.

They begin by addressing the question: “Who should pray?” and address some excuses why people don’t think they should pray, concluding “You are too sinful not to pray; sinners are the very people who need prayer. Therefore, pray.”

The following 29 chapters focus on different aspects of prayer, such as pray in Christ’s name, pray believingly, pray humbly, pray boldly, pray intercedingly, pray thankfully, pray dependently and pray against besetting sins. Each were instructive, helpful and bible based.

Some helpful things along the way:

“Prayer requires faith: believing in God, trusting in God, and placing our expectations in God.” (Ch 3) 

“You need humble boldness – humility when viewing your sinful self and boldness when viewing a reconciling Christ.” (Ch 7) 

[Regarding praying with thankfulness] “First we are to be thankful for mercies received… Second, we are to be thankful for trials endured… Third, we are to be thankful for the absolute goodness and infinite mercy of God expressed in His actions toward us in both prosperity and adversity.” (Ch 11) 

“In our prayer, God does not note the expressiveness of our voice, the multitude of our words, or regard the eloquence of our expressions. Rather, He observes the sincerity of our heart. To pray sincerely is to pray without pretence or deceit.” (Ch 17)

“We are to pray dependently, not independently, True prayer weans the petitioner from self-reliance.” (Ch 23) 

“Unfulfilled prayer can serve as a means to produce far deeper and more valuable benefits that those we originally requested. Unfulfilled prayer can teach us patience and contentment, surrendering and bowing before God…. Unfulfilled prayer can serve to teach us humility and dependency, to trust more in God and less in self.” (Ch 24) 

“Thoughtful prayer moves us from weakness to strength and from strength to glory. It binds us to God and comforts us in distress, pray not as a last resort, but in the increasing knowledge of God and His will." (Ch 30)

There was an appendix at the end with 31 Marks of True Prayer – they were helpful to read but I would have appreciated an explanation of where they came from, they seemed to be sourced from elsewhere.

I did have a couple of hesitations:

• Chapter 29 was about praying with scripture. I wasn’t sure why this was placed so late in the order, it would have been much better to have this much earlier. Indeed, there was no real logical to the order of the chapters.
• It was very disappointing that in 2010 they chose to use the KJV translation for all bible quotes. It makes the bible almost inaccessible to modern readers. Even the small number of suggested written prayers modelled the use thees & thys whereas all the other writing was modern. This implies you need to use different language for both bible reading and prayer than you use in daily life. It’s very unhelpful.
• It would have been both instructive and encouraging to have a short prayer or aid to prayer at the end of each devotional. Modelling such prayer, not just talking about prayer would have been beneficial.

So as an aid to consider prayer from multiple angles, it's a very helpful book with instructive prompts and challenges. With each chapter only ~2 pages, it's very, very readable. One a day would indeed be excellent food for thought over a month, and a way to analyse your prayer life in light of the teaching of scripture.

Note: it only appears to still be easily available as an eBook.