Day 8: A Praying Life {book review}

A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul Miller is a huge source of encouragement for anyone seeking to pray more, pray better or just understand prayer. What I love about this book, though, isn’t just that it encourages you to pray, this book gives a ton of practical advice on prayer. I love books with practical application, don’t you?

I mentioned in an earlier post that this book had been my companion on the treadmill over the summer. In fact, I attributed my success with exercise to this book!! 🙂 Those are some pretty strong words!

This book pertains greatly to praying for our children because one of the themes throughout this book is the author’s relationship (and prayer life) for his daughter with autism. In fact, I would even go so far as to recommend this book to parents of children who have disabilities. It was just that encouraging. Really, what makes it encouraging is the author’s perseverance in prayer. He and his wife prayed and continued to pray for many, many years. Sometimes they saw answers, sometimes they didn’t…but he discusses the importance and power of prayer regardless of when/how/if we see answers that we like.

This book isn’t just for parents of children with disabilities, though. It’s for all of us. It’s for anyone seeking to live out the verse “pray without ceasing” but having no idea what that looks like.

One of my favorite quotes from the book is this:

“A needy heart is a praying heart. Dependency is the heartbeat of prayer.” ~ Paul Miller

Needy and dependent are two characteristics that I didn’t expect to find in parenthood. But, alas, God finds me needy and so very desperate for Him moment by moment. I never knew I would pray so very much for wisdom or cry for “help!” so many times!!

But, I thank God that He has shown me my weakness…I thank Him for the struggles I’ve had as a mother – because they have led me to the cross. My weaknesses in mothering have been the very thing that God has used to draw me to Himself through prayer.