BOOK REVIEW: HOW TO PRAY, BY CS LEWIS

I've been trying to up my prayer game.

First, I tried to pray longer. I, uh, fell asleep.

So, I tried to pray harder. So. Many. Squirrels. I thought about everything but what I wanted to pray about.

Ah. Writing it down would help. It helped me remember, but not so much praying deeper.

I'm not going to say my prayer life is stellar. I'm still working on it. But after reading How to Pray by CS Lewis, I have a much better understanding of the point of prayer.

First, let me say that CS Lewis was absolutely brilliant. I won't pretend I understood everything he wrote. Sometimes I got lost. He wrote paragraphs I read like five times because it took me that many to either follow his point or give up and move onto the next.

But I picked up some deep wisdom. Here's a few.

1. If God knows everything, then why bother praying? I thought I knew the answer to this one: relationship. And, I was right, if incomplete. Lewis points out that God has us do things in the world (like write a blog post) that he could have done better. Why not prayer, too? God left in creation the ability for people to take part in miraculous events. How cool is that?

2. When we pray, we pray, in part, according to the urgings of the Holy Spirit, to the great intercessor Jesus Christ, to implore the Father above. God is praying to God through us. I never appreciated the honor of this.

3. When God does not answer my prayer, it may be because of another's prayer. Today. Yesterday. Or, get this, a prayer in the future. Maybe my prayer in the future. He sees the whole picture. I only see yesterday (imperfectly) and today (if I'm paying attention). This gives me a new faith that God acts for what's actually best, not for what I think is best.

That's just a few things. You should read this short book for yourself. See if it doesn't change the way you approach the creator of the universe.