The Books #6

It doesn't give an overall theology of prayer, it moves back and forth between story/biography/teaching points, it has no 1,2,3 guides, nor really any suggested schemes for praying.

But this is the book which has had the most effect on me with regards to prayer.  Unlike many books which systematically lay out what it is and how we should go about it, Cymbala's book leaves me feeling that prayer is real, living, necessary, vibrant - not simply a good idea or a healthy duty.   His simple story of the broken down church he inherited and the dire situation which nearly finished him off but instead drove him to prayer - which led ultimately to the Brooklyn Tabernacle - could have been a shiny, rags to riches, success story.  But instead one is left feeling that he simply found himself on a path which perhaps many of us miss, and it's a path that deep down we have been looking for.

It's not a polished book and, like everyone to whom something big has happened, it occasionally downplays other things God wants us to do.  But it is simply the most motivating book on prayer I have ever read