I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer lately, especially with regard to what it means to have a regular time with the Lord both personally and corporately. Today’s links will focus on personal prayer. Next week, I’ll post several articles surrounding the practice of corporate prayer. Read on for some helpful (and encouraging!) food for thought:
- Tim Challies writes about what it means to know that the Lord is pleased with how we seek Him in prayer. Turns out, prayer is much more about God’s glory than we might think. Speaking to unanswered prayer, he quotes from Spurgeon, who writes: “We are nothing better than children even in prayer, and therefore it is not every request that is wise; but yet we are children, and therefore the cries which come from our hearts touch the heart of our great Father in Heaven.”
- Sometimes, reading the prayers of others can help us to develop our own prayer “vocabulary.” Here, Justin Taylor posts four daily prayers that come from the mind of John Calvin…
- I have personally found the puritan collection of prayers titled “The Valley of Vision” to be extremely helpful as far as orienting my own praying in Biblical ways. You can read each day’s entry here or order the book here.
- In a similar vein, two books I’ve found helpful are D. A. Carson’s “Praying With Paul,” and J. C. Ryle’s short pamphlet “A Call to Prayer” (free PDF) (…or pamphlet).
