A Twenty-Five-Peso Book to Impact Your Prayer Life

Jared Brock’s A Year of Living Prayerfully is quite an interesting 320-page read. It’s not a “I can’t put it down, I will read through the night” kind of excitement but rather the “Wait. I need to take it in and put it down for a while” kind. It’s like the Great Controversy prayer journey but written by a hippie. If there was a Christian version to Eat, Pray, Love (which I haven’t read by the way, just the idea of it), this book would be it. One should read it with a grain of salt though because some of the concepts presented might not be biblically sound. But the way he tackled head on the Benny Hinn effect, the self help guru Robbins, and how far the Quakers might have strayed from their root, was eye opening. Until I read this book, I didn’t even know that there were a lot of wealth and prosperity preachers embroiled in financial stewardship scandals. 

There were also bits and pieces of biographies of famous missionaries/reformers/religious leaders like John Wesley, Francis of Assisi, Terese of Avila, John Mueller, Billy Graham, the Pope. It included even their eccentricities. They were human after all. And wrong dogmas.

My bias against “saints” was somehow chipped away. Reading about some of them in the book reminded me that I don’t think they wanted to be venerated or put in a pedestal, or worshipped. I honestly believe that a majority of these saints wanted to fade away into the background and give back all the glory and honour and power to God. 

My opinion against “pilgrimage” was also changed in a way. If a person wants to go on a journey to get closer to God, I do believe that his/ her conviction should be respected.

Another eye opener for me was the Holy Land tour. Before reading the book, a part of me really wanted to go on that tour. But a part of me was also kind of scared. Would I have a deeper relationship with Jesus if I go to where He was physically present in times past? Or would I be disheartened by what it had become or how lacklustre it actually was? The experience of the author seemed to be the latter. After denying the existence and the identity of Christ, it seems that the once “chosen” people are going down a downward spiral. But I’m not saying that it was only them that brought about the sad state of affairs. The presence of other major religions there for lucrative purposes also adds to the sad state of things. I just might not want to go on that holy land tour. 

The book is peppered with insightful quotes and poems about prayer that will surely benefit the layman as well as the minister. Some of which are:

Ora et Labora. Pray and work. St. Benedict of Nursia

“Prayer is not a check request asking for things from God. It is a deposit slip- a way of depositing God’s character into our bankrupt souls.” Dutch Sheets

“In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not. After that, the idea that prayer is recommended to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed.” C.S. Lewis

“He who prays most receives most.” St. Alphonsus Maria De Liguori

“The early Church did not have a prayer meeting; the early Church was the prayer meeting. In fact, in the early Church every Christian was a prayer-meeting Christian.” Armin Gesswein

“Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?” Leonard Ravenhill

“Do not forsake prayer, for just a the body becomes weak when it is deprived of food, so also the should when it is deprived of prayer.” St. Gennadius of Constantinople

“Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.” Richard J. Foster

“Converting our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer moves us from a self-centered monologue to a God-centered dialogue.” Henri Nouwen

“You will have it, or you will know one day why you don’t have it, and you will be made content not to have it.” Charles Spurgeon

“The Christian on his knees sees more than the philosopher on tiptoe. Go sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves.”D.L. Moody

“Prayer is our declaration of dependence upon the Lord.” Philip Yancey

“To get nations back on their feet, we must first get down on our knees.” Billy Graham

“We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results.” R.A. Torrey

“Fasting as it relates to prayer is the spiritual atomic bomb that our Lord has given us to destroy the strongholds of evil.” Bill Bright

“Do not work so hard for Christ that you have no strength to pray, for prayer requires strength.” Hudson Taylor

“Prayer is where the action is.” John Wesley

Another thing that I liked about it was its perpetually fun tone making it an easy read. 

The best part I guess was I got the book on such a sweet deal: P 25 pesos at Book Sale. Haha! So if you see this at a Book Sale near you, don’t hesitate to get a copy. 

But seriously, one of the best things I’ve learned from the book was the practice of taking to heart the verse “Pray without ceasing.” Different religious groups practiced it in different ways but what what stuck to me was the advice every time you're distracted by your thoughts or by that incessant compulsion to fill your boredom by entertainment or by the pleasure of holding your gadget, pray. Just pray. Fill your hours with prayer. Pray for revival, pray for conversion, pray for your enemy, for that neighbour, just pray. It might not change them but it will definitely change you.