"Ordinary Prayer" by Jeremy Rios

-

Rios, Jeremy. Ordinary Prayer: Encountering God through our Everyday Needs. Jeremy Michael Rios, 2012. 

Rios begins with two important truths: 
1. The center of prayer is petition. 
2.Petition is difficult. 
From there he offers a  guide to, you guessed it, ordinary prayer. Petitionary prayer practiced daily over all of our needs, small to large, common and repeated or unique. His goal, his prayer, is that "as you read you will be led to put the book down and begin praying."

What follows is a guide to understanding prayer, how to pray, how to understand God's answers, how to pray in groups, and more. And by guide I do not mean exhaustive step-by-step instruction manual. "Ordinary Prayer" and Rios, as the author, is more like a wilderness guide. He won't carry you up the mountain, but he will tell you which paths are fruitful, which rocks are firm, and point you to the views along the way. In other words Rios is not out to be prescriptive, nor to answer all of our questions, but to enable us to pray. In this he succeeds. 

This is an excellent book. It is, in fact, one of the best books on prayer I have ever read. Helpful, surprisingly insightful, applicable in ways far broader than the subject of petitionary prayer, this book is worth reading several times. And I'm not just saying that because I know the author. Rather, that last sentence was included as a subtle way of giving you, the reader of this review, full disclosure; Jeremy did not pay for or even ask for this review, but he is my friend. The book has been published for some time now; he just had the bad luck to publish it right as I stopped reviewing books. Now that I might start again, I thought I should start with something great. 

Conclusion: 5 Stars. Highly Recommended. Pray. Then read this book. Then pray more. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forgiveness: A Hard Word From Luther

-
"Those who follow Christ grieve more over the sin of their offenders than over the loss or offense to themselves. And they do this that they may recall those offenders from their sin rather than avenge the wrongs they themselves have suffered. Therefore they put off the form of their own righteousness and put on the form of those others, praying for their persecutors, blessing those who curse, doing good to the evil-doers, preparing to pay the penalty and make satisfaction for their very enemies that they may be saved. This is the gospel and the example of Christ." - Martin Luther (Quoted by Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, pg. 161-162)
Read more

Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty

-
Image
Leslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt , and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1995. 105 pgs. In this gem of a book Newbigin takes the reader on a journey away from the idea of Cartesian certainty and towards a more proper scaffolding for thought and belief. He denies the possibility of ideal certainty with no doubt and concludes that seeking this ideal can only to skepticism (of an extreme sort) and Nihilism. The thesis of this book might best best be stated as follows: the proper confidence of a Christian is not the possession of indubitable knowledge but the confidence of one who has heard and answered God's call of 'Follow me.' In order to demonstrate this point, Newbigin first examines three 'paths' whose titles, which are his first three chapter titles, seem somewhat counter-intuitive. In the first chapter, 'Faith as the Way to Knowledge,' Newbigin argues that if knowledge, and God, are ultim
Read more

A Good Tree Bears Good Fruit....

-
Image
"Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." - Matthew 7:17-18 "One of the most powerful ways to influence the behavior of a system is through its purpose or goal. That's because the goal is the direction-setter of the system, the definer of discrepancies that require action, the indicator of compliance, failure, or success toward which balancing feedback loops work. If the goal is defined badly, if it doesn't measure what it's supposed to measure, if it doesn't reflect the real welfare of the system, then the system can't possibly produce a desirable result. Systems, like the three wishes in the traditional fairy tale, have a terrible tendency to produce exactly and only what you ask them to produce. Be careful what you ask them to produce." - Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems. 
Read more