For many years now, I have taken time at the beginning of the year to devise a reading plan. In that plan, I list the books I hope to read in the coming year in more than a dozen categories (memoir, history, etc.). Part of this year’s plan was to read acclaimed biographies of the great Renaissance artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.
I read them and learned a lot from both books, of course. For example, though I have long known that aspiring artists begin by copying great works of their predecessors, I was fascinated by the many insights into the ways those two artists learned from, departed from, and improved upon the work of masters who had gone before them.
As in art, so in prayer.
READ MORE: A PRAYER FOR EVERY NEED
An old friend called some time ago. We hadn’t seen each other or talked in years, but he and his family are as dear to me as ever. He asked me to recommend a book for his men’s group to read and discuss together, preferably one that would give them daily readings and enough content to fuel lively conversations.
A book came to mind immediately: John Baillie’s A Diary of Private Prayer. It is a collection of morning and evening prayers for 31days, concluding with a morning and evening prayer specifically for Sundays. They are personal, warm, honest and deep. Prayers of adoration, confession, repentance, thanks and petition.
I explained to my friend that this volume is not a book about prayer. It is a book of prayer. Each prayer should be not only read, but prayed as well (my edition even provides a blank page facing each prayer for the reader’s own reflection and notation).
When we pray with a master such as John Baillie (a Scottish minister and theologian)—or with others such as Lancelot Andrewes, Peter Marshall, or Walter Brueggemann—we will very likely find ourselves inspired and equipped, like a painter or sculptor, to try new and bigger prayers of our own.
So why not try one or more of the books and authors suggested here. (Some are even available at your library or via inter-library loan.) You never know—praying with a master may take your prayer life to Sistine Chapel heights.
