Deepening Your Conversation with God: Learning to Love to Pray

By Ben Patterson

Book Overview

Learn to Love to Pray If you long to call your prayer time "sweet," but usally find it flat or without taste... If you thirst to know God through prayer, but too often fail to find the time for prayer... If you desire conversation wtih God, but tend toward a monologue instead... Ben Patterson, with "I've been there too" reassurance, will encourage and inspire you to turn your prayers from a spiritual discipline to a much-anticipated delight. In this want-to-pray guide, he describes prayer as the work of the Christian, explaining why God covets your prayer and how it gets God's work done on earth.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764223518
• ISBN13: 9780764223518
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Bethany House Publishers
• Length: 172 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Great Book

This book came at a time in my life where I was thirsty for God but I was seeking to quench my thirst through knowing more things about God. But Ben Patterson in this book helped revitalize my need for communication with God. This is a book straight from Ben's heart. It is an easy read that took me about two days. This one is definately worth it.

Excellent Job

An effective prayer life affects every part of your life and consequently positively influences the lives of other people. In this wonderfully writte book, Ben Patterson couples personal experience with academic study to give an inspiring teaching on prayer.His teaching is practical. He says prayer is like swimming, that you learn by doing. He talks about the joy and value of being in God's presence. In several places he goes back to the original languages in the Bible to make a point. Consider his explanation of a Christian calling. In Latin "vocare" means "to call", from which our English word vocation comes. This book is inspiring as well as motivational. Reading it will create the effect the author seeks, to give you a greater desire to spend time with God.

An opportunity for us to learn from the author's experience.

If there's one thing every Christian should get wrapped around, it's a solid, meaningful, soul-filling prayer life. Yet this is lacking in most of our lives, and mine is really no different. Ben Patterson's book on learning to love prayer has been refreshing and insightful. It offers a look into some deeply personal episodes in the life of a man who has learned by hard experience how critical it is to connect with God in prayer. And we have an opportunity as his readers to learn from his experiences, or at least to prepare ourselves for our own experiences.Seldom will you read a more honest, open, unabashedly human account of a person's journey toward spiritual maturity. Patterson is not afraid to lay his weaknesses and failings out on the table, or to discuss some things that might make some modern Christians squeamish. But he does it lovingly and at times humorously, with plenty of helpful illustrations along the way. I personally found the chapter on fasting to be of great benefit during one of my own spiritual struggles when I was just beginning to practice this as a spiritual discipline.If you're searching to find true substance in your prayer life, or if you're looking to take an already solid prayer life to the next level, give this book a try. I think it has something to offer to every believer.

Frank, Honest and Full of Conviction

Ben Patterson has written a remarkable book on prayer. Not prescriptive, but instead an insightful and honest look at what prayer is and what it means to both GOD and our lives. As an alumni of Hope College, where Patterson is Dean of the Chapel, I was touched by the grace and candor with which he used his Hope College experience to exemplify his writing. Ben is a treasure that Hope should never ever let go!

An intelligent and passionate guide to Christian prayer

Ben Patterson, the Dean of Chapel at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, has written one of the best books on Christian prayer in recent years. It is rich with biblical, theological and practical insights that encourage, educate and equip people at every stage of faith to enter into a deeper knowledge and experience of Christian prayer. What distinguishes Patterson's book from others is that it does not fall into the "pietistic" trap of making prayer a "utilitarian" guide without establishing an excellent biblical and theological foundation for prayer. It also transcends any denominational loyalties, which is rare in many books being written on Christian spirituality or the Christian spiritual disciplines. Any reader will be drawn closer to God as well as encouraged to spend more time engaged in the rich spiritual discipline and tradition of prayer. Patterson gives many excellent illustrations of how people at prayer have transformed history and how prayer actually has the power to transform the "pray-er". I would put this book in a league with PT Forsyth, John Baillie, Eugene Peterson, George Buttrick, Olive Wyon, Richard Foster and others who have written significant works about prayer. It is hoped that this excellent work will find the audience it well deserves.