A Praying Life
Connecting with God in a Distracting World
Description: A Praying Life is an honest look at the difficulties of prayer, unanswered prayers, and successes in prayer. Readers will appreciate Paul Miller’s down-to-earth approach and practical nature. Parents will find his family-life experiences especially helpful.
Reading A Praying Life, you’ll learn how to become like a child running to your Father – with your distractions and all. You’ll learn how to ask him for anything spiritual and earthy, including parking spots. Paul Miller’s insights into cynicism will reshape your asking and your faith that undergirds your asking. By living in Miller’s stories of unanswered prayer, you will learn to watch and anticipate the story God is weaving in your life. New and better questions will come to you as you begin to perceive God’s story in you. To help you establish a richer praying life, Miller explains how to use several practical tools in every day life.
A Praying Life by Paul Miller was selected by Christianity Today’s LeadershipJournal.net as one of the 10 most valuable books for church leaders of 2009.
Content Page
- Introduction
- 1. “What Good Does it Do?”
- 2. Where We are Headed
- Part One: Learning to Pray Like a Child
- 3. Become Like a Little Child
- 4. Learn to Talk with Your Father
- 5. Spending Time with Your Father
- 6. Learning to Be Helpless
- 7. Crying “Abba” — Continuously
- 8. Bending your Heart to your Father
- Part Two: Learning to Trust Again
- 9. Understanding Cynicism
- 10. Following Jesus out of Cynicism
- 11. Developing an Eye for Jesus
- Part Three: Learning to Ask Your Father
- 12. Why Asking is So Hard
- 13. Why We Can Ask
- 14. How Personal is God?
- 15. What Do We Do with Jesus’ Extravagant Promises about Prayer?
- 16. What We Don’t ask For: “Our Daily Bread”
- 17. What We Don’t ask For: “Your Kingdom Come”
- 18. Surrender Completely: “Your Will Be Done”
- Part Four: Living in Your Father’s Story
- 19. Watching a Story Unfold
- 20. A Father’s Love
- 21. Unanswered Prayer: Understanding the Patterns of Story
- 22. How God Places Himself in the Story
- 23. Praying Without a Story
- 24. Hope: The End of the Story
- 25. Living in Gospel Stories
- Part Five: Praying in Real Life
- 26. Using Prayer Tools
- 27. Keeping Track of the Story: Using Prayer Cards
- 28. Prayer Work
- 29. Listening to God
- 30. Prayer Journaling: Become aware of the interior Journey
- 31. Real-life Praying
- 32. Unfinished Stories
Reviews from people
“What a refreshing book! If you’re tired of religious prayer games and rote prayers that stop at the ceiling or if you have suspected that God was on vacation somewhere, this book will change your life. And if you’re thinking about giving up on prayer, don’t! At least not until you’ve read this book. When you have, you’ll thank me for recommending it to you.”
— STEVE BROWN, professor, Reformed Theological Seminary; teacher on the syndicated radio program Key Life
“Honest, realistic, mature, wise, deep. Warmly recommended.”
— J.I. PACKER, professor of theology, Regent College; author of Knowing God
“Paul Miller teaches us to pray where we live: in the messiness of ordinary lives filled with kids, jobs, ministries, and other people’s constant needs and demands. He doesn’t offer shortcuts, but he does offer real encouragement and practical tools to grow deeper in an intimate conversation with God.” — CYNTHIA HYLE BEZEK, editor of Pray! magazine; author of Come Away with Me
A Review by Doreen Chua (click to see the whole review)
“A Praying Life” challenges us to intimately seek God who is infinite and yet personal and draws focus on the promises of God.
http://www.challies.com/archives/book-reviews/a-praying-life.php
http://www.revkevindeyoung.com/2009/05/praying-life.html3
