A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
September 13, 2022
I have a good friend that regularly recommends books that change my life. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul Miller is one of those books. Since reading, my relationship with the Lord has been transformed to the next degree of glory and I am so grateful. My ideas of prayer upended, my practice of prayer challenged, my motive for prayer renovated, and my expectations of prayer exceeded. I hope you will consider adding this book to your must-read list. Here are fourteen quotations to give you a taste:
“Learning to pray doesn’t offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer busyness we can develop an inner quiet.” (pg 11)
“A needy heart is a praying heart. Dependency is the heartbeat of prayer.” (pg 12)
“Private, personal prayer is one of the last great bastions of legalism. In order to pray like a child, you might need to unlearn the non-personal, nonreal praying that you’ve been taught.” (pg 20)
“He came for sinners. All of us qualify. The very things we try to get rid of–our weariness, our distractedness, our messiness–are what get us in the front door!” (pg 21)
“Efficiency, multitasking, and busyness all kill intimacy. In short, you can’t get to know God on the fly. If Jesus has to pull away from people and noise in order to pray, then it makes sense that we need to as well.” (Pg 35)
“If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. You’ll always be a little too tired, a little too busy. But if, like Jesus, you realize you can’t do life on your own, then no matter how busy, no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray.” (pg 37)
“We received Jesus because we were weak, and that’s how we follow him.” (pg 43)
“A praying life isn’t simply a morning prayer time; it is about slipping into prayer at odd hours of the day, not because we are disciplined but because we are in touch with our own poverty of spirit, realizing that we can’t even walk through a mall or our neighborhood without the help of the Spirit of Jesus.” (pg 56)
“When they sought independence from God, they stopped walking with God in the cool of the day and their prayer link was broken. What does an unused prayer link look like? Anxiety. Instead of connecting with God, our spirits fly around like severed power lines, destroying everything they touch. Anxiety wants to be God but lacks God’s wisdom, power or knowledge. A godlike stance without godlike character and ability is pure tension.” (pg 58)
“Both the child and the cynic walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The cynic focuses on the darkness; the child focuses on the Shepherd.” (pg 73)
“The great struggle of my life is not trying to discern God’s will; it is trying to discern and then disown my own.” (pg 139)
“Lamenting shows you are engaged with God in a vibrant living faith. We live in a deeply broken world. If the pieces of our world aren’t breaking your heart and you aren’t in God's face about them, then you’re becoming quietly cynical. You’ve thrown in the towel.” (pg 175)
“When you lament, you live simultaneously in the past, present, and future. A lament connects God’s past promise with my present chaos, hoping for a better future.” (pg 180)
“I’m actually managing my life through my daily prayer time. I’m shaping my heart, my work, my family–in fact, everything that is dear to me–through prayer in fellowship with my heavenly Father. I’m doing that because I don’t have control over my heart and life or the hearts and lives of those around me. But God does.” (pg 263)
Written by Sawyer Taylor