. Donald Bloesch, The Struggle of Prayer (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980).
. P. T. Forsyth, The Soul of Prayer (1916; reprint, Vancouver, B.C.: Regent College Publishing, 1995).
. J. C. Ryle, A Call to Prayer (Laurel, Ms.: Audubon Press, 1996). Portions quoted are from pages
10-19, 26-31, 33. The whole tract is well worth reading, and the substance of it is incorporated in the chapter on prayer in J. C. Ryle’s Practical Religion (1878; reprint, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1998).
. The ESV text reads “for it is pleasant,” but a marginal note provides the alternative “for he is beautiful.”
2 The Path and the By-Paths
. John Bunyan (1628-1688) was an English Puritan preacher and author who spent considerable time in prison for his faith. This extract from Pilgrim’s Progress comes from pages 126-28 in an undated version published in Chicago by Moody Press. The full title is The Pilgrim’s Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come, Delivered Under the Similitude of a Dream. For more on the spiritual content of the allegory, see J. I. Packer’s chapter on Pilgrim’s Progress in The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the Puritan Classics, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Randall C. Gleason (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), pp. 183-99.
. Søren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing (New York: Harper & Row, 1948).
. Title of a volume of essays celebrating the tercentenary of Edwards’s birth; see A God-Entranced Vision of All Things, ed. John Piper and Justin Taylor (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2004).
. Pilgrim’s Progress, (Chicago: Moody Press, n.d.), p. 41.
. Ibid., p. 74.
. Ibid., p. 83.
. Ibid., p. 111.
. Ibid., p. 124.
. Ibid., p. 137. By an oversight the fourth line is omitted.
. John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1920), p. 192; not in the Moody edition.
. See also Ps 10:1; 69:17; 88:14; 89:46; 102:2; 143:7; Job 13:24.
. See Rom 4:13-25; Gal 3:6-14; Heb 6:13-15; 11:8-19.
. James M. Houston, “A Guide to Devotional Reading,” appended to Juan de Valdes and Don Benedetto, The Benefit of Christ, ed. James Houston (Portland Ore.: Multnomah Press, 1984), pp. 181-82; echoing Aelred, On Friendship, in The Love of God, ed. James M. Houston (Portland Ore.: Multnomah Press, 1983), pp. 233-51.
. Bloesch, Struggle of Prayer, p. 3.
. Cited in ibid., pp. 92-93. There are many versions of this prose poem, all making the same point. Bloesch refers to Col. R. H. Fitzhugh, The Paradox of Prayer, as his source for it.
. Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), p. 183, cited in Bloesch, Struggle of Prayer, p. 73.
3 Brooding
. John Owen, Works, ed. W. Goold (London: Banner of Truth, 1965), 7:348.
. Ibid., p. 384
. Ibid., 6:224-25.
. Richard Baxter, Practical Works, ed. W. Orme (London: n.p., 1830), 23:310.
. Ibid., p. 338.
. Ibid., p. 340.
. Ibid., p. 369.
. Ibid., 2:392.
. Ibid., 23:373.
. United States Catholic Conference, Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 1994), pp. 713-16.
. Lewis B. Smedes, My God and I (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). The quotations that follow are from page 161.
. “The Great Conversation” is the subtitle of an introduction to praying by the Roman Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft, Prayer: The Great Conversation (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1991).
. John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.7.3, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), p. 76.
. For Mateen’s story see Immanuel Presbyterian Church’s website at <www.immanuelpresbyterian.net> and click on “Church Leadership” and then “Mateen Elass.”
. Walter Hilton, Toward a Perfect Love, ed. and trans. David L. Jeffrey (Portland, Ore.: Multnomah Press, 1985), p. 57.
. Francis Martin, “Reading Scripture in the Catholic Tradition,” in Your Word Is Truth, ed. Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 168.
. Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk (New York: Berkley Publishing, 1996), p. xx.
. Jan Johnson, Savoring God’s Word (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2004), pp. 87-91.
4 Praising
. George Sayer, Jack, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994), pp. 340, 342, 344.
. C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (London: Fontana, 1959), p. 182.
. C. S. Lewis, “A Word About Praising,” in Reflections on the Psalms (San Diego: Harcourt, 1958). The quotations that follow are all from this nine-page chapter 9.
. Ibid., pp. 92-95.
. Ibid., p. 94.
. c. s. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (Orlando: Harvest Books, 1958), p. 93.
. Ibid., p. 93.
. Ibid., p. 94.
. Ibid.
. Ibid., p. 95.
. Ibid., pp. 96-97. Lewis’s use of Scotch for Scottish is a strange lapse. Scotch is an outdated word applied nowadays only to whisky, mist, terriers, eggs, tape, broth and broom. Scottish people resent the word as pejorative in other contexts.
. Ibid., p. 97.
. C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1964), pp. 147-50.
. Ibid., pp. 147-48. Dante, following Thomas Aquinas, conceived heaven as the endless joy of contemplating the evermoving changelessness of God, as when we watch a waterfall or the ocean.
5 Prayer Checkup
. St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care, trans. Henry Davis, in The Works of the Fathers in Translation 11, ed. Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1955). Pope Gregory the Great lived from 540-604 and served as pope the last fourteen years of his life.
. On the bands see John Wesley, A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists (1748), in Works,
ed. T. Jackson, 3rd ed. (1872; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986), 8:248-74, esp. 257-59. The full rules for the bands are given on pp. 272-74.
. William Williams, The Experience Meeting (Vancouver, B.C.: Regent College Publishing, 1995).
. For example InterVarsity Press publishes more than 150 Bible study guides for personal and group use, all of them emphasizing a combination of studying the biblical text and testing oneself to live, think, and pray accordingly. And Richard Foster, for instance, makes valuable contributions in the area of small group and personal spiritual formation as he draws from Scripture and from the whole history of Christianity in Renovare’s Spiritual Formation Workbook: Small Group Resources for Nurturing Christian Growth; Devotional Classics; and Spiritual Classics, all published by HarperSanFrancisco.
. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care, trans. Henry Davis (New York: Newman Press, 1955), p. 234.
. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae 44 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 139.
. C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1964), pp. 100-101.
. Francis Bottome, “Search Me, O God” (1823).
. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, pp. 81-82.
. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, pp. 81-82.
6 Asking
. Martin Luther, quoted in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther (Phillipsburg N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2002), p. 63.
. Some manuscripts omit “me” and some omit the whole verse. But the text as we cite it is almost certainly correct. See D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 497-98 (additional note).
. Thus the answer to question 196 of the Westminster Larger Catechism reads as follows: “The conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer (which is, For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen.) teacheth us to enforce our petitions with arguments, which are to be taken, not from any worthiness in ourselves, or in any other creature, but from God.”
. Stephen Charnock, Works (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1865), 4.8. Dan 9:4, 7-9, 16-19 is the passage that answer 196 in the Larger Catechism quotes to illustrate argument in prayer (see note 4).
. J. I. Packer, A Passion for Faithfulness (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1995), pp. 44-45.
. John Newton and William Cowper, Olney Hymns in Three Books, 1879. The “gourds” and the “worm” are images taken from Jn 4:6-7 (KJV) and Ps 22:6; Is 41:14.
7 Complaining
. E. M. Bounds, The Essentials of Prayer (Grand Rapids: Baker, n.d.), p. 54.
. See the ESV note on v. 18.
. C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1956), pp. 11, 305, 319.
9 Joining In
. John R. W. Stott, The Message of Ephesians, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1979), p. 172.
. Attempts to find the source of this “ditty” have been unsuccessful—except that it was an old Irish toast.
. Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae (1696), 1.7.
. Os Guinness, Time for Truth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), p. 46.
. The Book of Common Prayer is available in its 1662 English, 1928 American, and 1962 Canadian versions. The above quotations are from the Canadian text. The “other prayers” (collects) quoted are from New Year’s Day, Ash Wednesday and all Lent, and the sixth and nineteenth Sundays after Trinity.
. Francis Ridley Havergal, “Take My Life and Let It Be” (1874).
. George Matheson, “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go” (1882).
. C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (London: Fontana, 1959), p. 181.
. John Newton, “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” (1779).
. Isaac Watts, “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed” (1707).
. Samuel Francis, “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” (1875).
Postscript to Christians Becalmed in Their Praying
. See Walter Trobisch, “Martin Luther’s Quiet Time,” in The Complete Works of Walter Trobisch (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1987), pp. 705-13.
. C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1964), pp. 38-44.
. Martin Luther, cited in Trobisch, “Martin Luther’s Quiet Time,” pp. 710, 712.
