A Help To Prayers

To continue the concept of transforming our prayer lives I've decided to investigate more carefully just how that can be done. I believe Dr. Whitney's suggestions are the a must and essentials to beginning, but I wonder, "is there more?" To that end I will pursue a little farther the idea of transforming our prayer lives and see where it should lead me. Today I am posting some suggested helps to guiding your prayer life.

I've already mentioned Valley of Vision, which is a book of Puritan prayers. Let me add to that also the hymns of William Cowper, Isaac Watts, and Horatius Bonar. These three gentlemen wrote some of the most theologically sound and beautiful hymns. Several of these have been a major help to my thinking as I pray to the Lord. Adding to this I would encourage you to read the biographies of great prayer warriors, particularly George Muller. No man's prayer life has been so well documented in the history of the Christian church and it is an inspiration to modern day Christians. Read Muller's autobiography or the biographies written about him by Roger Steer or A.T. Pierson.

It should be noted here that what I have previously said about praying through Scripture stands as the most important and helpful tool to guiding your prayers. As wonderful as the Puritans and other historical figures were they cannot bring us closer to praying in line with Scripture than Scripture itself can. Not to mention that the Psalms in particular express so many of our own heart concerns. It has been said that there is a Psalm for every sigh of the heart. So these additional suggestions are not meant to replace praying through Scripture but merely to offer some other helps if you want them.

As I continue to explore how to transform prayer I will post my finding here, may God lead us all to more fruitful and serious prayer lives.