This is a book you need to be reading, and I know, I believe I have already made that reality clear as a frost-infused morning, after a near freezing night.  However, given the significant importance of the biblical imperative of prayer in the life of a believer, and given the quality of this title on the subject of prayer, one could well conclude that very little else is needed.

However, I am prone to make a word count… count, so if you are a little laid back-to-nearly-passed-out about whether this is really as significant a subject as one blogger seems to be inferring, take a read of these words from some names you might be familiar with…

Prayer is the most important thing in my life.  If I should neglect prayer for a single day, I should lose a great deal of the fire of faith - Martin Luther

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing - Martin Luther

A prayerless Christian is like a bus driver trying alone to push his bus out of a rut because he does not know Clark Kent is on board - John Piper

Only a sovereign God can inspire prayer, and only a sovereign God can answer it.  A man’s concept of God, therefore, determines the depth of his prayer life.  Real prayer begins and ends with God enthroned - S. D. Gordon

The Lord Jesus is still praying… thirty years of living; three years of serving; one tremendous act of dying; nineteen hundred years of prayer.  What an emphasis on prayer - S. D. Gordon

You didn’t have to take my word for it, and now you can take theirs!

Some other individuals’ words that you should also take notice of, are the following two reviewers.  In the following quotation, you will read how Tim “I read 10 million words” Challies describes being presented with another book on prayer…

Any time I write a review of a book dealing with prayer I feel the need to point out that bookstore shelves are already groaning under the weight of such books. There are hundreds, thousands probably, of books on prayer. A new one is going to need to be good—very good—to supplant the excellent resources already available. Paul Miller, perhaps a bit reluctantly, takes on this challenge in his new book A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World. I was drawn to this book by David Powlison’s Foreword in which he gives it his highest recommendation and says, “A Praying Life will bring a living, vibrant reality to your prayers. Take it to heart.” And what Christian does not want to learn to pray better? What Christian would claim that his prayers are as powerful as ever he would want them to be? The vast number of books on this subject testifies to the Christians’ desire to pray more and to pray better.

It is no shock to read Challies offering the following verdict… “Recommended. An excellent book about prayer and the God who hears our prayers.”

You can read the rest of the review, and in full… HERE!

A final review of this title that can perused, is from the site, Fundamentally Reformed, with the following words symbolic of this reviewers opinion of this title…

A Praying Life is easily the best book I’ve read in the past several years. Miller speaks with an uncommon grace, and his book plants the spiritual discipline of prayer squarely upon the truths of the Gospel. A praying life is the goal, not regular disciplined moments of spiritual ecstasy. Miller’s book is distinguished from others I’ve read in that it stresses prayer’s connection with the gospel, it explains how a lack of prayer betrays a lack of dependence on God, and it illustrates through Paul Miller’s own personal family stories, how prayer connects with all of life. In short, the book makes a praying life seem real, and possible.

You can read the entire review… HERE!

As a final thought, First Thessalonians 5:17 affirms a certain perpetual practice of prayer.  I have read some time ago that the imagery involved with “praying without ceasing” is something like the reality of having a hacking cough.  When such is “blessed” with such a condition, it does not mean that one is coughing 24-7, but, it does mean that the physical environment that encourages and enables each successive cough [insert: bark], is present throughout!  In the same, this affirmation in Scripture is not saying that one is in a perpetual state of prayerful utterances, but it does mean that the one is in this state is characterised by an constant attitude of prayer, which means that when the context, circumstance, situation, or need arises, one is readied and in the position to begin to pray forth!

This title will help encourage this reality in your life, will encourage a greater sense of the Spirit’s leading in this area, and will encourage a more explosive awareness of the need for the Gospel to be at the very centre of your very existence!

You know what to do now… and to further help you to achieve this for yourself, you can find this title to purchase… HERE!

Always Informing, For the Always Reforming, From the Land of the Long White Cloud

Man of Spin