I think prayer can be one of the most confusing parts of the life of faith. What is prayer? How do I pray? Do I need to come to prayer with pure motives, or can God just sort out my muddle? What about the days when I can’t pray, or simply don’t want to?
It’s here, more than almost anywhere else, that I’m grateful for the communion of saints. When it comes to prayer, I’m simply not alone in my wrestling, my wondering and my learning. The spiritual classics on this topic are so numerous that I’m actually skipping them completely in this post (that list is for another day). Instead, I’ll offer you resources that I’ve had around me recently. They’re not necessarily the most authoritative, or the most exhaustive, but they are some of the more inspiring or permission-giving books I’ve come across of late.
Here are 10 (okay, 13) books that I turn to when I need words, ways or wisdom to pray.
Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard J. Foster
If there’s a classic on prayer, this is it. Foster helped me to realize that my tears were a form of prayer, that prayer looked very different in different seasons of life, and that contemplative prayer wasn’t as weird and scary as I thought it was. I find myself coming back again and again to this book as a resource and guide for the life of prayer.
“The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives—altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. But what I have come to see is that God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture. We do not have to be bright, or pure, or filled with faith, or anything. That is what grace means, and not only are we saved by grace, we live by it as well. And we pray by it.”
The Paraclete Psalter: A Four-Week Cycle of Daily Prayer
Along with Phyllis Tickle’s incredible series on the Divine Hours (prayer for summertime, springtime, autumn & wintertime), this condensed version of the psalter (which is simply a collection of the Psalms) guides me in prayer when I don’t have the words. And even when I do, it’s good to be held in prayer by the same prayer book Jesus used (not Paraclete particularly, but the Psalms).
Your God Is Too Safe: Rediscovering the Wonder of a God You Can’t Control by Mark Buchanan
This book isn’t about prayer per se, but (a) it was written by a Canadian and (b) it shakes me out of my easy assumptions about God. All took often I approach prayer as a way to control God, rather than as a way to be in relationship with Him. Buchanan’s book reminds me that God is wild and good and not safe at all—and that He loves me enough that I can risk real prayer instead of the things I think I should say to Him.
The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul With Monastic Wisdom (A Twelve-Week Journey) by Christine Valters Paintner
Another odd book to include in a list of books on prayer, especially since there are so many excellent spiritual classics that I could list (like the Philokalia or the teachings of the desert abbas and ammas) that I believe are invaluable helps to prayer. What I like about The Artist’s Rule is that it gives permission to those drawn to creativity to allow their art-making to be part of their prayer life. It also introduces an adaptation of The Rule of St. Benedict that provides a structure for the exploration of different types of prayer in a creative way. While The Artist’s Rule is not the most orthodox of interpretation of monastic life, I reach for it when I need to be reminded that poetry, art-making and play are all forms of prayer.
Well, I’m Anglican. The Book of Common Prayer, although somewhat confusing to newcomers at first, is a lectionary that provides the backbone of services, prayers (communal and individual) and readings that tie together the raggedy, eclectic and mysterious denomination of which I’m a part. I’ve loved it well before becoming part of an Anglican church for its poetry and liturgy. I like knowing that there are hundreds of thousands of people praying the same prayers, reading the same readings—on the days that I pick it up and join in.
Praying in Color: Drawing A New Path to God by Sybil MacBeth
I love this little book, and recommend it often. It’s a slim volume that provides a road map to prayer through, well, doodling. When I picked up this book, I didn’t think that I could draw and that it really wasn’t for me. Soon enough I discovered that my doodling really could be prayer, and that when I prayed for someone visually like that I was much more likely to remember to pray for them orally or silently throughout the day.
The Fire of the Word: Meeting God on Holy Ground by Chris Webb
A recent addition to my go-to books on prayer, The Fire of the Word is a guided journey into the heart of Scripture. Not Sunday School Scripture or ho-hum Bible study. This is a living, breathing transformative meeting with God through the Word. Too many people I know have been beaten with the Bible or taught it by rote so often that it feels like a lifeless set of principles or overwrought stories. Too often I find myself avoiding Scripture because it doesn’t feel like a place where I’ll meet the living God—I’ve been taught to dissect it rather than meet with it. After reading Chris’s book, I wanted to pick up the Bible again, and when I did, Scripture prayed me.
God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas
I struggled with putting a season-specific prayer book on this list, but I love this book so much I couldn’t leave it out. I use this book every year during Advent and have written about it here. It’s a visual, poetic, prayerful feast and it guides me into the season with grace. I wish they had one for every season of the church year.
Prayers for a Privileged People by Walter Brueggeman
This book of prayers will shake you. A combination of Psalm-like, prophetically voiced poetic gifts, these prayers aren’t easy, simple or comfortable. They call forth the heart, they challenge the mind and they unbury the soul from underneath saccarine religious clichés. I don’t just like this book of prayers, I need it.
Living in the Companionship of God, Trusting God for Everything and Learning to Hear God by Jan Johnson
This little trilogy of what are titled personal retreat guides isn’t just a blueprint for time away with God (although they are excellent at that, and I use them for my own guided retreats). Each of these books is an experience of prayer in and of itself. When my soul needs to be refreshed, I take one of these volumes with me and work through them as prayer, as rest, as renewal in Christ. They may seem simple topics, but they are profound enough to be journeyed through again and again.
What about you? Do you have books on prayer or books of prayer that you reach for regularly?
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Check back in each day for a new list, and be sure to click on over to Sarah’s blog to read hers as well. I mean, hey, she has a fancy button and everything:
Monday: 10 books that formed me spiritually
Tuesday: 10 books that I keep in my spiritual direction room
Wednesday: 10 books that I own but am embarrassed I haven’t read
Thursday: 10 books that help me pray
Friday: 10 books that remind me God’s the Great Storyteller
Saturday: 10 books I read on the weekends
Sunday: 20 books I read while writing my book