HOW TO PRAY WHEN LIFE HURTS
By Roy Lawrence
Scripture Union. 143 pages
ISBN 1 85999 674 4
Many Christian readers have become wary of books that begin with the words 'How to'. And when the subject is a matter like prayer, a degree of suspicion is understandable.
Roy Lawrence's book is not simply an essay in 'how to pray', however, but how to pray in difficult circumstances. Indeed, some of the chapters cover important pastoral issues: how to pray when you feel guilty/anxious/depressed/are grieving, etc.
Each short chapter makes for relatively easy reading, and the writer offers some helpful insights into the nature of a variety of human emotions.
However, it is a book that ultimately fails to satisfy. One major reason is Lawrence's use of Scripture, which is disappointing, to say the least. Mystical, subjective meditation, and Ignatian 'reading of self' into Bible stories are among the techniques offered to the reader.
'Healing' is a key word for Lawrence. 'Prayer heals', he writes (actually, I would have thought it more accurate to say that God heals!), and the implication that the will of God is for wholeness in body on earth will disturb some. Overall, despite some of its insights, not a book to be recommended.
