Developing a Healthy Prayer Life
The ancient formula, the law of praying is the law of believing (lex orandi, lex credendi), or, using other words, the way we pray determines what we believe, expresses an important but forgotten truth. To this adage we would add the law of living (lex vivendi), that is, the way we pray determines the way we live. The strength of Developing a Healthy Prayer Life is that its 31 studies treat prayer not as an aspect of the Christian life, but as the Christian life itself. The Christian life is a life of humble, submissive, patient, persevering, trusting, thanking, wrestling, waiting, working, reverent, fervent, constant, dependent, contented, and thoughtful praying and living. As we pray, so we live, and as we live, so we pray. We have needed a book that comprehensively, yet simply, teaches us to pray, not by techniques (though some how-to s are helpful), but by uniting prayer in the presence of God with life in the presence of God; that shows us how dependent and reverent living arises out of dependent and reverent praying. Developing a Healthy Prayer Life is just the book to help us to unite our praying and our living in a Christ-honoring whole. Terry Johnson, Senior Minister of Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, Georgia, and author of The Family Worship Book --Endorsement