Prayer: A Holy Occupation

Rating:
Summary: You might be disappointed with this book....
Review: I enjoy Oswald Chambers and typically review his books very highly (My Utmost for His Highest, Studies on the Sermon on the Mount) but was disappointed with this particular book.

I eagerly purchased "Prayer" expecting to sit at the feet of this great man and listen to his wisdom on the topic. Instead, I found a compilation of what is contained in his other books - cut-and-pasted together in such a way as to frustrate the reader.

Sad to say,this book is simply a crude attempt to "remarket" Chamber's other works. The student of Chambers will be enormously more pleased to purchase a volume of his other books like: Utmost, Baffled to Fight Better, Christian Discipline, Sermon on the Mount, or many others, all based on his singular teachings and collected by his widow.

If you buy and read his great books, you will have no need to buy this compilation.

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: This book has been a great blessing to me.

Rating:
Summary: A great complilation from a great writer
Review: This book is composed of gems on the topic of prayer from Chambers' various books --- regrouped for concentrated study of various "requirements" of prayer: Obedience, Simplicity, Communion, etc. All the excerpts are conveniently indexed back to the original source. Questions are interspersed throughout the text to provoke deeper consideration of each subject. Every turn of the page brings another profound insight, and it's a book that can be referred to again and again.

Chambers really knows how to get to the heart of the concept of prayer as a relationship --- one that changes us, not through answers to prayer, but simply through the act of prayer as communion with God. He challenges us to take charge of our prayer life as "our only business." He reminds readers that prayer isn't about getting what we want from God, it's about God drawing us to Him through our obedience.

Chambers writes, "Prayer is the outcome of our apprehension of the [true] nature of God, the means whereby we assimilate more and more of His mind, and the means whereby He unveils His purposes to us." In this process our priorities are properly aligned with His, we can more accurately intercede in prayer for others, and we see answers to prayers we might otherwise perceive as unanswered.

Anyone who has read or considered reading "The Prayer of Jabez" especially needs to get this book for the balance it brings to the topic.