Prayer, The Great Adventure

Prayer, The Great Adventure

by

David Jeremiah

 

Reviewed by Aaron DeWeese

What subject was Jesus concerned with teaching?  What subject were the disciples most interested in learning?  Worship leading?  Preaching?  No!  It was prayer!

I picked this book up because David Jeremiah is my father's favorite preacher.  I've not heard very many of his sermons, though I would definitely be interested to.  I have collected several of Jeremiah's  books, this being the first one now read. 

I realized that I needed instruction on praying.  I felt as though I held nothing but a checklist that I would run through nightly - the last activity before sleeping.

What an eye-opener this book was!  It is a wonderful resource!  One could build a sizable library from the indexes.  David Jeremiah is a very succinct writer, whose prose is very enjoyable.  He is a man who enthusiastically relishes the depths of his subjects.  I hungrily ate and digested every sentence of every page.

Within Jeremiah gives us an outline for prayer.  It is based upon the Lord's prayer.  Sprinkled throughout the book are varied anecdotes of prayers answered as well as excerpts from Jeremiah's own prayer journal.  The anecdotes struck me in such a way that to date I have retold them to several people. 

The latter part of the book takes an in depth look at John 17.  Many have been fascinated with the chapter which allows readers to "listen in on Heaven's conversation".  There is so much here to glean understanding from.  Jeremiah casually takes on such theological topics as Calvinism and Arminianism, drawing upon the differences within the ways each doctrine prays.  He constantly quotes scriptural truths from men such as Tertullian, Augustine, Calvin, Oswald Chambers, Andrew Murray, John Piper, John MacArthur, Bill Hybels - the list goes on and on.

The last chapter calls for us to be journalists.  I've certainly no problem with that.  Jeremiah wishes us to write out our prayers, our thoughts, our concerns, our lives.  He quotes Socrates - "the unexamined life is not worth living".  He speaks of "harvesting" from journals.  I'm definitely picking up Gordon MacDonald's book on journal-keeping, which Jeremiah draws heavily from; also of note Ronald Klug and Steven Covey's books on journaling.  It is no wonder at all the reason it is that David Jeremiah is a superb writer.