1. Bishop Ryle wrote, “If I know anything of a Christian’s heart, you are often sick of your own prayers” (p. 17). How does this connect, or not connect, with your own experience?

2. Look again at the opening paragraphs of this chapter, which speaks of differing kinds of praying at different life stages (pp. 12-13). What are some significant changes you have seen in your own praying?

3. Study Moses’ encounters with God in Exodus 3:1-6, 13-14; 34:5-8. What do these passages reveal about God’s nature?

4. How could God’s nature, as revealed in the Exodus passages, inform your praying?

5. This chapter warns that if our praying becomes so routine that it is like cleaning our teeth, we may be creating a false sense of spiritual security. On the other hand we can also find great value in some kinds of routine praying (pp. 13-15). What do you find in these paragraphs that speaks an appropriate warning to you? What do you find that you would like to implement in your praying?

6. Look again through the long quotation from Bishop Ryle on pages 16-18. Find one statement that you agree with, one that challenges you, and one that is like your own experience. If you could speak personally to Ryle, what would you want to say or ask?

7. Pages 21-33 outline eight “sweet P’s.” “God is personal, plural, perfect, powerful, purposeful, promise-keeping, paternal and praiseworthy.” Select one of these qualities that you would like to study further and meditate on. Reread the section about it. Look up any biblical passages cited and read their contexts. Note questions that this characteristic of God raises in your mind. Consider reasons why you are thankful that God is this kind of God. How would you like your understanding of this characteristic of God to influence the way you pray?

8. Read John 15:15-16. How does this passage help define your relationship with God?

In what ways do these words from Jesus encourage you to pray?

9. The final paragraphs of this chapter describe the book as less a how-to book than a to-whom book. The focus is on God and being God’s person in this matter of praying. As you begin studying prayer from this standpoint, what hopes and expectations does this statement raise?

First Thessalonians 5:17 assigns us to “pray without ceasing” (keep on praying). Set as a goal that for one complete day you will attempt to be in an attitude of prayer during your waking hours, constantly practicing the presence of God, looking for reminders of his work in every setting, turning your thoughts constantly toward him, sending out constant “arrow prayers.” For example, the striated shadows of bark on a tree might remind you of the texture of God’s creation and you thank him, an ambulance siren reminds you to ask God’s mercy for all involved in that emergency, a worrisome phone call invites you to pray a release of those worries to God, a surge of anger triggers an instant prayer of confession. Even at the end of the day, allow a prayer to be your closing thought as you fall asleep into the arms of God.

“Many who pray meaningfully have found it a wonderful help to schedule times with God and to plan in advance how they are going to use that time” (p. 14). Set a time (perhaps half a day) on your calendar or date book to spend alone with God. If you are able, choose a special setting. Outline what you will read, think about, pray about and meditate on during that time.

1. As you think of the subject of prayer and various ways you have practiced it, what are some paths to good praying that you would recommend to another pilgrim?

2. What are some prayer by-paths you have tried but would now post with a warning sign?

3. Look through the seven-scene summary of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (pp. 42-47). Select one of poems that you find true in some personal sense. What makes this bit of poetry particularly significant?

4. If the life of a Christian is a hike (or a pilgrimage) as Bunyan and we agree, what does this metaphor suggest about what it means to live and grow as a Christian?

5. “The single word help is the best ingredient of prayer” (p. 53). To what extent do you agree with this definition? What do you find limiting about it?

6. See Jesus’ instructions about making prayerful requests of God in Matthew 7:7-11 (p. 55). Also review the poem on pages 58-59. How could you pray in a way that heeds both of these teachings about prayer?

7. Briefly scan “Unanswered Prayer” on pages 55-59, then study Paul’s narrative about his thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, and Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane in Luke 22:42. How do these biblical examples of a true path of prayer help you deal with the problem of Christian prayers, prayed in faith, that God appears to ignore?

8. Prayer by-paths (routes leading to boggy swamps, cliff walls and dead ends) fall into several categories. One of these is a failure to recognize that God is one who is “maximizing good in this fallen world” (pp. 62-63). How might accepting this truth about God affect the way you pray? Whom you pray for? What you ask? How you respond if a prayer appears unanswered?

9. Page 64 suggests another by-path away from good praying, based on God’s omniscience (possessing all knowledge). In other words, if God has no needs and he knows our needs already, why pray? How do you respond to this argument?

10. As you think about your current place on the paths and by-paths of prayer, what are some of your current challenges? What steps can you can take to meet them?

“Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies” (Ps 27:11). Spend time thinking about this passage from the psalms. Try focusing on one or two words in the text at a time as you consider what this verse says about God and your relationship to him. After a time of meditation on this text, pray, talking honestly with God, who is your friend and walks your path beside you.

Slowly read aloud John 15:12-17, noticing what this passage reveals about the relationship between you and Jesus. Pray to God who reveals himself in this way.

1. Brooding is often thought a negative or unpleasant frame of mind, something akin to worry. How has this chapter led you to see brooding in a different light?

2. What do you find worrisome or objectionable in this kind of praying?

3. What is the difference between allowing random thoughts to drift through our minds and brooding prayer (pp. 69-71)?

4. “The usual thing is that matters become clear after prayerful meditation, informed by praying over what we read in Scripture” (p. 77). Under what circumstances have you found this to be true in your own experience?

5. What do you find hard about brooding meditative prayer?

6. Reread the quoted excerpts from Psalm 119 on pages 81-82. What do you find here that encourages you to overcome the difficulty of brooding prayer?

7. Review the seven ls of imaginative frames for meditation (pp. 86-89). Which seem most natural for you? Why?

Which method would you like to challenge yourself by trying? How?

8. Pages 89-94 speak of meditating on Scripture as both a quick and a slow march. What value do you see in each?

9. “We must remember that God (not self) is the center of our universe” (p. 92). Why is this important to keep in mind during brooding prayer? What are some specific ways that this truth should shape your praying?

10. “Whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil 4:8). How can you best incorporate this admonition into your praying?

• “Meditation is something that you can do well in more than one way” (p. 85). Scan this chapter again noting more than a dozen ways to practice brooding prayerful focus on Scripture. Select one method to practice throughout the coming month.

1. Early in his Christian walk C. S. Lewis asked several difficult questions about praise prayer (see pp. 98-101). What are some of your own questions about how and why God’s people ought to praise him?

2. Read aloud Psalm 42 using voice inflections to express the various moods of the psalm. Where do you most connect with this psalm? Why?

3. Which phrases are repeated? What is the effect of these repetitions?

4. How does the psalmist’s longing, remembering and thirst contribute to his prayer?

5. What elements of praise do you find in his prayer?

6. How are your own hopes similar to or different from the hope of the psalmist?

7. Review the six Ds of praise praying (pp. 101-10). Which comes most naturally to you? Which do you most need to work on? How?

8. What strikes you as significant about corporate praise (pp. 107, 110-15)?

9. What connections do you see between praising God and proclaiming him to others? What tensions do you find between praise prayer and proclamation?

10. How do you respond to the eternal aspects of praise prayer (pp. 109-10, 115-19)?

Make an honest evaluation of your inclination and your practice of praise prayer. Talk to God about what you find, and what you hope to become.

Give yourself three minutes to write as many names for God as you can recall. Enter into a time of prayer in which you meditate on each name and praise God for what each of those names implies.

1. If you were anticipating a “soul checkup” by God, how would you most likely prepare for it?

2. On pages 126-33, we find that God’s checkups are likely to include the state of our faith, repentance, love, humility, wisdom and focus. Select one of these areas where God has begun his strengthening work in you. What avenues has he used?

3. Select one of the six areas above where you know that you need God’s continued work. How might you begin to grow more spiritually healthy in that area?

4. What do you appreciate about God’s omniscience (Ps 139:1-6)? What makes you uneasy about this kind of knowledge?

5. What do you appreciate about God’s omnipresence (Ps 139:7-12)? When have you wished, even for a moment, that you could hide from God?

6. What do you appreciate about God’s omnipotence (Ps 139:13-16)? What questions do you continue to have about God’s power?

7. If you were preaching a sermon or writing an essay about Psalm 139:19-22, how would you explain these harsh words as part of a prayer?

8. What connection can you find between the fierce words of stanza 5 (vv. 19-22) and the supplication of stanza 6 (vv. 23-24)?

9. “Go into your chamber, shut the door” begins P. T. Forsyth’s paragraph of challenge toward good praying (pp. 144-45). What phrase in this paragraph could you draw on to improve your own praying at this current time? How?

10. Why might you want to invite God to search your hidden self, the part of you known only to him and to you?

• Begin your prayer with a time of silence. Meditate on the nature of God: his omniscience, his omnipresence, his omnipotence. If you are able to do so with honesty, slowly pray the words of Psalm 139:23-24. Invite God to search your inner being. Wait in God’s presence as he gently guides you through his search.

• C. S. Lewis writes that we might well begin each prayer with the words “May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to” (p. 144). Invite God to show you what his search has revealed. Ask him to lead you into the way everlasting. Wait quietly in his presence, absorbing what that means.

1. When you reflect on your own patterns of petitionary prayer, what do you see as a current challenge?

2. Review the section “What Should We Ask For?” (pp. 153-61). What concept or paragraph do you find here that encourages you to pray?

3. What specific challenges do you find in these pages that you would like to work on in order to better pray within God’s will?

4. Review the section “Why Should We Ask?” (pp. 161-64). How does this section help you look at your own motives? What do you find there?

5. Review “On What Basis Do We Ask?” (pp. 164-73). What encouragement and what challenge do you find in the three-legged stool outlined in the first paragraph and described throughout this section?

6. Review the final section “How Does God Answer Our Prayers?” (pp. 173-79). How do you think that you could best acknowledge the difference between human and divine perspective when you make requests of God?

7. If a friend complained to you that God had not granted a longstanding prayer, what encouragement could you offer that person? (See pages 177-78 for ideas.)

8. Return to page 166, the paragraph beginning “The promises of God are trustworthy.” What do you find in this paragraph that draws you toward better praying?

9. Glance through the chapter one more time, looking for each quotation of Scripture. What passage is most helpful to your current situation? Why?

10. All of us are likely to benefit from talking over with our heavenly Father from time to time how we should order our personal intercessory prayers. What has God brought most strongly to your mind as you worked with the implications of this chapter? How can you best act on that knowledge?

Review questions and answers 100-103 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (pp. 151-52). Select one of the answers that seems particularly significant to you at this point. Spend ten minutes in meditation and prayer based on that single phrase from the Lord’s Prayer.

Select one of the apostle Paul’s prayers for the churches at Ephesus, Colossae or Thessalonica quoted on pages 156-57. Pray this prayer for a church, a Christian group or church leader.

1. When someone speaks of “complaining to God,” what are some of your first concerns?

2. Focus on one of the complaint prayers of this chapter. In what ways is that particular prayer of complaint also a prayer of faith?

3. Why do you think that God never explained to Job why he was suffering?

4. What do you gain by Job’s final encounter with God?

5. If you were in Jeremiah’s sandals (pp. 184-86), what would you complain about?

6. In what ways is “Weeping Prophet” an appropriate title for Jeremiah?

7. Why is a lifelong walk with God likely to include prayers of complaint (pp. 186-90)?

8. “Regenerate people feel through their minds and think through their feelings” (p. 192). If this is true, how would it affect the way you talk to God about the harsh realities of your life?

9. What do you find helpful about Paul’s experience with complaining to God about a “thorn” (pp. 201-2)?

10. “Small . . . is healthy in the presence of God” (p. 204). How might this statement help you to prepare to bring your complaints to God?

Job’s friends sat in silence with him for seven days—and that was the best part of their ministry to him. Bring to God in wordless prayer one of your major areas of suffering. For several minutes sit silently in God’s presence allowing his love to absorb your pain. Close your time of wordless prayer by reading God’s encouragement from the Psalms:

Scan several of the prayers of complaint recorded in Scripture. Select one that seems to touch your own current pain. Using insights you have gained from reading this chapter, pray your own prayer of complaint using a pattern or idea you find in the biblical prayer.

1. This chapter opens with several pictures of what it means to persist. What is one of your own favorite images of “hanging on”?

2. What circumstances have made it difficult for you to hang on in prayer? (For examples, see pp. 208-10.)

3. How would you describe the New Testament concept of “sonship”? (Feel free to draw on or expand on what you find on pp. 212-16.)

4. What encouragement to pray do you find in this kind of relationship with God?

5. Read through the psalms quoted on pages 216-18. What do you find here that encourages you to hang on in prayer?

6. Select either Nehemiah’s or Hannah’s example of persistent praying (pp. 219-22). Which do you most identify with? How and why?

7. “By compelling us to wait patiently for him to act, God purges our motives” (p. 222). What do you find thought-provoking about this statement?

8. “By compelling us to wait for him, God shapes his giving in a natural way” (p. 222). Scan pages 223-24. Why do you think God often uses natural order as he brings answers to our prayers?

9. “It is for discipline that you have to endure” (Heb 12:7). When have you found that God’s delay helped to bring maturity in yourself or in someone else? (See also pages 224-25.)

10. Go back to one sentence or one Scripture passage from this chapter that you want to hang on to as you continue to pray. Why and how is this significant?

Slowly and prayerfully read aloud Romans 8:15-17, allowing the full weight of its meaning to be absorbed into your soul. Pray your response to God.

Bring to mind one of your “hanging on” prayers, perhaps a desire you have expressed for months or years to God. Once again, bring this request to God, this time incorporating into your prayer some of the insights you have gained from this chapter.

1. What do you find naturally attractive or naturally challenging about joining in with other Christians?

2. Study Hebrews 10:24-25. What all do you find here that encourages you to join in with other believers? What would you likely contribute; what would you likely receive?

3. Review the paragraph on pages 237-38 ending with “And we need each other! God has called us together to be his body on earth, and that means that by our very relationship with each other, we are to testify to his redeeming power.” When have you been thankful for some of the forms of connections within the church described in this paragraph?

4. Groups of people, even in church, who join in with some can also “close out” others, perhaps those most needing a sense of belonging among God’s people. How can you guide your church to better extend the love of Jesus to those who do not yet know him?

5. Read again the heavenly scene from Revelation 7 (p. 242). Picture yourself among the diverse people in that scene. Are you comfortable or uncomfortable? Why? How could you begin now to connect with the kinds of people with whom you will someday live forever?

6. “Heaven is the goal of our pilgrimage, the place where through the mercy of Christ every single one of God’s people will spend eternity” (p. 243). “Every gathering of believers on earth for worship may be properly thought of as a rehearsal for glory that is to come” (p. 244). When and how have you seen glimpses of heaven in your various “rehearsals” here?

7. What do you find insightful or challenging about the “personal lopsidedness” described in the paragraph opening with that term (pp. 251-52)?

8. John Wesley is quoted as saying, “There is nothing more unchristian than the solitary Christian” (p. 252). If John Wesley were sitting next to you, what would you like to say in response?

9. What relationship have you found between your personal prayers and your worship with other believers? How could you use one to improve the other?

10. What counsel about prayer would you offer to a “Reluctant Joiner” (pp. 252-58)?

Review the “ditty” on page 255. As you come to the line “To live below with the saints we know,” does any particular person come to mind? If so, bring your relationship with that person to God in prayer.

Reread and pray Psalm 34:1-3, which opens this chapter. Bring to God your personal reflections on each line of the psalm.

1. Do you find it more natural to pray with your heart or only with your head? For example . . .

2. According to Os Guinness, character is “who we are when no one sees us but God” (p. 261). What do you think your patterns of praying (talking with God) reveal about the condition of your heart?

3. How have you seen pride become a hindrance to prayer? (See pp. 264-66 for ideas.)

4. “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek 36:26). How has this new heart affected your relationship with God? What do you see as your current “growth edge” as God continues to develop your new heart? (You may find ideas in pages 266-73.)

5. In David’s prayer of Psalm 86, he asks God to “unite my heart” (v. 11). What would it mean for you to make that same request of God? (Various translations of that verse listed on pp. 275-76 may help you think of possible consequences of that prayer.)

6. Review the four tests of a united heart (pp. 276-77). If you were issuing yourself a progress report on those tests, what would that report say?

7. How has God’s Spirit aided your praying? (For ideas see the section beginning on p. 278.)

8. Eight bulleted paragraphs on pages 279-81 begin with the phrase, “Believers know . . .” What encouragements to better praying do you find here?

9. From the “Postscript” beginning on page 286, select an idea that seems just right for you.

10. Read as a prayer of thanks Samuel Francis’s hymn “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” (p. 284). Sit or kneel silently for a period of time, allowing yourself to rest in his love. When you are ready pray your response to God.

Pray, asking God to direct your thoughts toward some section of this book that may be of value in your next step toward maturing in prayer.

“You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the LORD.” Slowly read aloud these words of Jeremiah 29:13-14, as God’s words to you. Respond in prayer to him.