Praying God's Word for Your Life: A book review

 

Recently I had the opportunity to review Kathi Lipp’s most recent book, “Praying God’s Word for Your Life.”  This is the first time I have read one of Kathi’s books, though I have heard nothing but great things about her!

I’ll be honest, I generally steer clear from books that seem to border too much on the “how to” side of things.  I find myself feeling like the author doesn’t “get” me or that their approach just simply wouldn’t work in my life.  I was afraid this book might fall into the “how to pray in three easy steps” group, but it certainly did not!

From the back cover of the book: “You pray for others---but are you forgetting to pray for yourself?”  My current prayer life is a struggle.  I like to write it off as a “season of life”, but that’s just a pathetic excuse.  Lipp’s focus on praying through biblical passages is easy to understand and simple to put into practice.  I felt that she didn’t carry a narrow focus when talking to her audience----she could have been speaking to a young mother, a single college student or a retired professional---the approach is applicable to us all. 

In the first few chapters of “Praying God’s Word for YourLife,” Lipp spends time talking about preparing for prayer & gives some guidance on how to use her book as a guide.  What I appreciated most is that in part 2 of the book, each chapter is broken down into topical arrangements as in “when you feel inadequate” or “parenthood.”  These topics than highlight passages of scripture to use as a guide when praying through that particular issue—so helpful!  By arranging this book in this manner, I felt free to jump around the different sections to where I felt I needed the most guidance.  Lipp also lists practical steps to achieving a more disciplined prayer life focused on scripture.

This book was packed full of honesty of her own struggles to maintain a disciplined prayer life.  She mentions at a point in the beginning of the book in the chapter “Preparing for Prayer”, “…sometimes we look at praying as a magic cure-all to all of life’s woes.  Then when life doesn’t turn out exactly like we planned it, we get mad at God.  And we stop praying…” She goes on from there, but the beginning of the quote left me pretty speechless.

Prayer is vital.  Growing in my relationship with Lord should be my number one priority.  I’m so thankful for another guide to help center and focus my prayer time a bit more each day.

 

**I received a copy of this book from Revell in exchange for my honest review**

 

 

Available June 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.