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by Katie Stringer

You can’t help but come away from this book longing to look into the great works that inspired it. Luther, Cranmer, Augustine and Calvin are some of the names that pop up again and again and Keller credits the writing of these authors as instrumental in helping him in his thinking on prayer and in his own prayer life. By including their famous writings, personal stories, and thoughts in language that speaks to us today, this book uniquely prepares the 21st century Christian for meatier things.

As Keller humbly admits in the introduction to this book: “The best material on prayer has been written.” (p.1) When I read that line it made me think of Calvin’s, “Thoughts on Prayer”. (Helpfully sliced out from his giant Institutes of the Christian Religion and printed in a pocket size ‘mini classic’ once published by Matthias Media.) This I had been carrying around with me through January, nibbling off bits here and there as ‘research’, while I awaited Keller’s book in the post. How, I thought, could Keller possibly top that? He doesn’t attempt to.  In fact I knew this was going to be an excellent book when I flicked through and could see Keller had included large chunks of Calvin’s “Thoughts on Prayer”, paraphrased in a modern style, (Chapter 7, Rules for Prayer) as one of his ‘masterclasses’ on prayer. Reading Calvin might feel like reading Shakespeare to some but to have it laid forth in plain English makes it accessible. And once you’ve gotten a taste for it in this manner you might feel brave enough to read it in all its old-fashioned glory.

Narrowing my focus on great Christian thinkers of the past these are the books and authors Keller shone a light on in this book and made me want to read more of:

My Booklist

•   Augustine’s Confessions, written at the turn of the 5th Century, Keller refers to it again and again for honest and heartfelt reflections on becoming a Christian and what that meant for the author. It contains this beautiful line on its opening page, "For Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee."

•   Kirsten Birkett’s The Essence of the Reformation (published by Matthias Media) is not directly referenced by Keller but I have included it as it helpfully contains three primary texts by Luther, Calvin and Cranmer:  Martin Luther on Freedom, John Calvin on Prayer, and Thomas Cranmer on Salvation.

•   The Collects of Thomas Cranmer. Keller writes, “They are...without peer, many think, outside of the Bible itself.”(p.272)

•   Matthew Henry’s A Method for Prayer: Freedom In the Face of God - Many may be familiar with Matthew Henry’s amazingly detailed commentary on the whole Bible and I couldn’t go past this recommendation from Keller: “I have found that you can easily spend an entire day in prayer with this guide and help.” (p.271)

•   Martin Luther’s “A Simple Way to Pray” and “Personal Prayer Book” in Luther’s Works: Devotional Writings II  - This little extract, Keller enthuses, is practical and profound and worth reading annually. (p.271)

The Best Book to Read

The best book to read is always the Bible. As wildly excited as I get about the most recent thing I’ve read it’s essential to compare it with the Bible. Keller has copped some criticism for being soft on judgement, not Presbyterian enough, and too focussed on apologetics, amongst other things. These aren’t criticisms I share, but there are essays on some of these topics in a thin book of criticism entitled, Engaging with Keller: Thinking Through the Theology of an Influential Evangelical (Edited by I. D Campbell & W. M Schweit) if you are interested in exploring these ideas further.

In the light of this criticism I think it’s worth remembering what it is Keller is on about: engaging with the culture of the day in a vernacular they will understand whilst remaining faithful to the Bible. I think that about sums him up. You would have to say he is achieving that goal through his preaching and writing ministry with remarkable success. I’m not saying he shouldn’t be critiqued, we should all be critiqued, but we shouldn’t expect him to undertake this task with perfection. The best book to read is not the latest Tim Keller or any other author. It’s the Bible. And I’m sure he’d say the same.

For my money I think Keller spends an appropriate amount of time centred squarely on the Bible in this book and in particular, as this is a book on Prayer, much time in the Bible’s prayer book, the Psalms. If you only go away from reading this review with one new old book to go and check out, it’s got to be the Psalms! At our local church there is a tradition of doing summer Psalms and it is always a good reminder to meditate on and pray through a Psalm a day.

Every Prayer Will End In Praise

Keller ends his book the way he began it: with self-effacement. The product of his research and self-discovery is devoted ultimately to revealing God in his glory, that we might give Him the praise he so richly deserves.  In chapter 12, as Keller looks at how we praise God in his glory, he comes finally to the end of the Psalter, to the Omega Prayer, Psalm 150, where he can’t help but note the unbroken praise. Every line of Psalm 150 is praise in the highest, with trumpets, dancing and loud crashing cymbals. Why does it end this way he wonders? He quotes Eugene Peterson who believes that in the end every prayer will end in praise:

All [true] prayer, pursued far enough, becomes praise. Any prayer, no matter how desperate its origin, no matter how angry and fearful the experiences it traverses, ends up in praise. It does not always get there quickly or easily-the trip can take a lifetime-but the end is always praise (p. 202 Peterson, Answering God)

Like anybody I’ve had my share of hard things that have made me wonder why God chose to answer my prayer with a ‘no’. There have been times when I have stopped praying altogether because I was stunned by God’s response. But I thank him for being merciful to me and hanging on to me in the silence, until I could lift my head again and praise him once more. I know for sure that it’s only by the power of the Holy Spirit that I am inclined to do that. May I do it all my days, may my prayers end in praise and go on for eternity.

Ultimately this topic opens up a world of riches so deep, you could blog all year on this book and the reading that inspired it.  I hope that this book and these reviews have encouraged you in your walk with God: To be active in daily prayer, and to continue to search for His face.

Know Thyself

In Ancient Greece, “Know thyself” was famously inscribed on the forecourt at the temple of Apollo in Delphi. The importance of self-knowledge continues to be an enduring and popular idea in the current era. Few people would argue with how important genuine self-knowledge is to lead a mature and happy life. And yet, one need only read Oliver Burkeman’s psychology articles (published each week in The Guardian Weekly) to be reminded how little we really know about ourselves or what’s best for us.

So where can we go for genuine ‘self-knowledge’? The ancient Greeks created an oracle. In our time professional experts and counsellors certainly have their place. As do family relationships, friends and making time for personal reflection. But what if there were something more as well? What if the Maker of the universe knew us better than we knew ourselves and what if we had the opportunity to reveal ourselves to them? To learn to depend on them and be taught by them? To grow in relationship with them, in community with others, all the days of our lives, and on into eternity? Well, that’s what’s called, ‘being a Christian’.

Being fully known

One of the great and truly satisfying aspects of having a prayer-filled life, Keller writes, is the deepening experience of being fully known by God. The Bible tells us God already knows us even in our inward being, (Psalm 139) that he made us (Genesis 1) but that we reject him (Romans 3:12). Despite this God still loves us more than we can imagine (John 3:16) and has made a path through the mess we’ve made: By Christ’s death for us on the cross (1 Peter 3:18) God has made it possible for us to have a relationship with him again. A really real relationship. The kind of life sustaining, intimate, dependable, honest, significant, emotional relationship we all of us, psychologically, long for. Many of us have a deep desire to have that kind of relationship with Him. Prayer is how we have this relationship.

Showing our True Selves

Prayer is our chance to share our true intimate selves with God. To illustrate the point Keller in his book gives a beautiful unpacking of the famous 17th Century poem, Prayer (I) by George Herbert, which he regards as “one of the greatest descriptions of prayer outside of the Bible.” (p.28.) One of the lines in the poem that stayed with me is, “The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage”.

The Heart in Pilgrimage

Prayer is a journey. We are on our way to a place that we have not yet come to. There is a longing in prayer that will not be satisfied until we go to be with Christ. Keller uses the helpful analogy of manna and likens prayer to it. It sustained the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness and moved slowly toward the hope of the promised land. However, he points out, it was by no means a banquet. It was nourishing, and it kept them going. But it was no feast! Prayer can be like that. It sustains our relationship with God, there are times when we catch a glimpse of how extraordinarily loving and good and kind our heavenly Father is and it keeps us going through the hard times and the slog. It is a kind of manna and it helps us to endure.

The Soul in Paraphrase

Prayer is also knowing who you are before God and giving God your essence. The soul in paraphrase is the real you! Keller writes:

[T]rue prayer is “the soul in paraphrase.” God does not merely require our petitions but our selves, and noone who begins the hard, lifelong trek of prayer knows yet who they are. Nothing but prayer will ever reveal you to yourself, because only before God can you see and become your true self. To paraphrase something is to get the gist of it and make it accessible...Prayer means knowing yourself as well as God.” (p.30)

Keller ends his analysis of Herbert’s poem by concluding, “Prayer is awe, intimacy, struggle - yet the way to reality. There is nothing more important, or harder, or richer, or more life-altering.” (p.32)

Freedom and Honesty in Prayer

If what Keller says is true, that we can only know ourselves by knowing Christ, that should free us up to be more honest before God, to stress less about the perfect way to pray and to pray more! I think we often think of ‘the perfect way of doing prayer’, and because we can’t do that, our prayers become stilted, muffled or non-existent. Rather Keller looks at prayer doing us, that in doing prayer, methodically and daily as Keller advocates, we come to understand who we are before God. By reading his word and being reminded, and pondering that deeply, through meditation until it moves us in our inner being. Then we can cry out in praise and thanksgiving with deep heartfelt gratitude for all God has done for us in Christ. Then we can be truly mortified by our sins, confess and ask forgiveness and His help to change. We can ask that He pour out his mercy and grace upon us and that we would know and feel its life giving benefit. And we can ask Him to grant our personal needs and the needs of others. If this kind of daily honesty before God were a habit we truly took on - without giving up - the transformation would surely be astounding!

Home

Books often make you think of other books. That’s the richness of the reading life. Making those connections, savouring them. Keller’s description of not just doing prayer, but (by the power of the Holy Spirit) of prayer ‘doing us’ couldn’t help but make me think of Marilynne Robinson’s portrait of the fictional character, Robert Boughton, in her astoundingly perfect book, Home. The Reverend Boughton, ailing and nearing the end of his life, is a man who has been friends with God a long, long time.

I love what Robinson has him say about prayer, that it is a chance to get your thoughts out and have a good look at them. She records his rambling and heartfelt grace at the dinner table on the first evening of his wayward son, Jack’s return, after 20 years away. Here is a portion of Boughton’s prayer:

Holy Father…I have rehearsed this prayer in my mind a thousand times, this prayer of gratitude and rejoicing, as I waited for an evening like this one. Because I always knew the time would come. And now I find that words fail me. They do. Because while I was waiting I got old. I don’t remember those prayers now, but I remember the joy they gave me at the time, which was the confidence that someday I would say one or another of them here at this table. If I lived. I thought my good wife might be here, too. We do miss her. Well, I thank you for that joy, which helped through the hard times. It helped very much. (p.42)

When I read this prayer I think how honest and true it is. Here is a man who has spent a lifetime - by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit - aligning his heart to God’s. So that even in extreme old age, overcome with weariness and emotion that his son has finally returned home after a twenty year absence and all the murky reasons surrounding that, he can still talk to God like this, like a friend. Like his true Father, who knows him better than anyone, he always did, but who Boughton knows so very well too. That he had a prayer all saved up, rehearsed even, but because he is so old he can’t quite remember it and he has to rely on the joy it gave him at the time. He has the memory of all those rehearsed prayers, prayers he longed to be able to pray. Just now the words and the order he had carefully put them in over the years has escaped him, but the essence of them will carry him through. Why? Because prayer is not a magic spell. Nor is it merely a ritual. It’s a relationship! And the prayers Boughton has prayed all the days of his long life have become the rich fabric of his relationship with God. A more flowing stream of words can’t be found just now, you can imagine the lump in the back of his throat, he says what’s on his heart. This is his soul in paraphrase. And it is beautiful.

What strikes me even more though is Boughton’s great desire to include God in on this precious moment. At this longed for time of reconciliation with his son the great joy that Boughton has looked forward to over the years is being able to share it with his God and to give him the praise for bringing his son home. (As King David says to God, “Whom have I in heaven but you?” Psalm 73:25) And this is the big point that Keller is getting at in his book on Prayer. At the end of the day nothing matters more than a personal relationship with God. In encouraging his readers to search for a deeper prayer life he is encouraging them to cling to a saving knowledge of Christ with all their might.

God wants all of us. Our whole selves. Which we can only share if we truly know who we are before Him. The only way to get this clear picture of ourselves is in the light of Christ. I need to work harder at knowing God and being known by him. This is life’s treasure. That I can talk to the Creator of the universe. That he is my father and he made me. That because of my sin he sent his son to die for me so that I can have a relationship with him. Oh what a fool that I could ever forget! Forgive me and change me. That I might live for you, now and forever. Amen.

The Art of Meditation

by Katie Stringer

One of the biggest take-homes I got from reading this book is the idea of Christian meditation. An idea that in my twenty odd years of following Jesus I hadn’t really heard of before, but one that I think is so important I’m going to devote this blog post to thinking about.

What is Meditation?

If you’ve grown up like me doing yoga for school sport even hearing the word, “meditation” has a certain set of connotations: The smell of incense; hard wooden floors; hands relaxing; feet relaxing; lying still; listening to the sound of your own breathing. Relax your jaw, relax your tongue; let your body sink through the floor as you empty your mind. Thoughts pop into my mind and I let them go. In this kind of meditation the emphasis is on relaxation and detachment. The kind of meditation Keller is talking about however is different.

Keller defines Christian meditation as “not quite Bible Study and not quite prayer”, but a bridge between the two. He writes, “[I]f prayer is to be a true conversation with God, it must be regularly preceded by listening to God’s voice through meditation on the Scripture.” (p.145) Meditation then, is a kind of super listening in, a close reading (after the first one) that sits with the text long enough to have not just penetrating insights but a shift in our inner being, in our hearts.  

Rather than emptying the mind this is a focused time on a few thoughts. Christian meditation has at its heart a deep engagement with a word that is “living and active”. “Sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12 ESV) When we wait upon God in this kind of meditative contemplation we are waiting on God to let his word do its work!

God’s Picture of Meditation: Psalm 1

For the ultimate picture of Biblical meditation Keller takes us to Psalm 1. The Psalms are often referred to as ‘The Prayer Book of the Bible’. However Psalm 1, Keller points out, is a meditation and not a prayer. In fact, to use his words, “it is a meditation on meditation.” His textual analysis of the Psalm proves the point and provides hard evidence for Keller’s theory that deep meditation is the gateway to prayer - this Psalm is, after all, the first of all the rest. Eugene Peterson provides a lovely description of the role of meditation in prayer and of the particular placement of this Psalm :

The text [of the Psalms] that teaches us to pray doesn’t begin with prayer. We are not ready. We are wrapped up in ourselves. We are knocked around by the world. [Psalm 1 is] pre-prayer, getting us ready.  (Eugene Peterson Answering God as quoted by Keller p. 146)

Keller does a great job of showing how we might use a meditation on a passage of the Bible, to get right down there and start setting roots, much like the tree in Psalm 1. Keller sinks deep wells into Psalm 1 and lists in detail the promises of meditation for: stability, substance, fruit, and blessedness.

The Blessings of Meditation

There are many blessings in store for the meditator. It may seem the most obvious point but it is critical: Biblical meditation will give us a sharper view of the whole text. Traditionally, ‘quiet times’ include questions so that we may mine the text for details, notice things and pause to contemplate and then to pray. At this point it is worth mentioning that Keller does not view meditation as a replacement for academic study of the Bible, which he regards as essential, particularly for new Christians so that they have a clear understanding of the overarching story of the Bible (the meta narrative) as well as its main themes.

Keller quotes British theologian John Owen for a helpful definition of meditation that distinguishes itself from Bible study and prayer:

It is distinguished from the study of the word, wherein our principal aim is to learn the truth, or to declare it unto others; and so also from prayer, whereof God himself is the immediate object. But...meditation...is the affecting of our own hearts and minds with love, delight, and [humility].” (p.152, John Owen The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded)

In other words, meditation is a time for savor, where we swallow the delicious truths served up to us in God’s word.

Insight

One of the fruits of meditating is insight. One of the best practical illustrations of what Keller means by finding insight through meditation can be found in the introduction to another of his book’s, Encounters with Jesus. Here Keller recalls a conference he attended for Bible Study leaders where he was given one short verse from the gospel of Mark (v17) and asked to spend 30 minutes studying it. You read right. One verse. Thirty minutes! As you might expect, Keller thought he had his verse licked after ten minutes. Nevertheless, the instructor challenged them all to keep going, “Write down at least thirty things you see in or learn from the verse.” (pp. x-xi) So Keller stuck with it. Bored and probably wanting to leave he pushed on. To his surprise he finds there was more. At the end of the time the instructor asked people to look over their notes and circle their single best insight. She then asked them to raise their hand at the point at which they found it. How many hands do you think were raised at five minutes? At ten minutes? As you can probably guess, most people in the room found their best insight at around the twenty-five minute mark. What do we learn from this? Deep insight takes time. It takes pushing on through our first responses, through boredom, through sitting and waiting, through thinking we’ve seen all there is to see, through stillness, until the text unfurls itself and we have a chance to really sink down into it and possibly, by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, get a new perspective and a changed heart.

That’s not to say we will have fresh insights every time we meditate. Sometimes we will be reminded of something. Sometimes we will be rebuked. Sometimes comforted. Sometimes overwhelmed with God’s goodness and love. But it’s difficult if not impossible to get it in a glance so if we don’t make the time for it we miss out on this blessing.

So How Do We Meditate?

Keller suggests four main ways that we might build the habit of meditation into our devotional lives:

1. By asking questions

2. Through memorization

3. By keeping a journal

4. Through self-talk to your soul

All four of these activities are complimentary and lead quite naturally from Bible reading into prayer. I’ll go through each one briefly.

Asking Questions

Keller provides some fantastic historical examples of private devotional questions to borrow from. In a nutshell, there are two basic textual analysis questions that need to be satisfied first. One, who the author and the original audience were and what the message was. And two, how this text fits into the bigger puzzle of the whole Bible Story, that has at its culmination salvation through Jesus. Once you have a satisfying answer to both those questions, Keller says:

To meditate is to ask yourself questions about the truth, such as: “Am I living in light of this? What difference does this make? Am I taking this seriously? If I believed and held to this, how would that change things? When I forget this, how does that affect me and all my relationships? “ (p.148)

Keller includes a helpful template at the back of the book with different versions of these type of questions that can be used with any Bible passage. These can be found on page 253.

Memorization

As Keller says, it’s not for nothing that memorization is called learning ‘by heart’. One of the simplest (and nowadays oft neglected) ways we can know God’s truth intimately is by memorizing it. Memorization becomes much harder the older you are, so if you are looking for practical help in this area, The Gospel Coalition website and facebook page have recently posted some excellent practical articles on the art of memorization with great tips and techniques for improving our skills in this area. Knowing that memorization has such powerful potential to shape us should also encourage us to give our children lots of opportunities to memorize chunks of the Bible. Planting those seeds will bless them for the rest of their lives.

I can’t help but think of the book, Angel in the Rubble (Allen & Unwin 2012) by Genelle Guzman-McMillan - The story of the last survivor pulled from the 9/11 Ground Zero debris. As Genelle lay helpless, trapped under boulders, what did she call to mind? The scripture her mother had taught her. The things she had memorized as a child! Finally, God had given her a situation in which she had time (ample as it turned out) to meditate. Her thoughts were very dark and they were the only light thing she could think of. As it turned out those memorized words became life saving for her and in the hours before she was rescued she recommitted her life to Christ.

Keeping a Journal

Keller’s book begins with extracts from the famous American writer, Flannery O’Connor’s handwritten prayer journal. At the age of twenty-one she writes with incredible honesty about her struggle to become a great writer, but unlike other aspiring young artists, she doesn’t just vent her feelings she prays them:

Dear God, I cannot love thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see and myself is the earth’s shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon…  I do not know you God, because I am [getting] in the way. (p. 11 A Prayer Journal, Flannery O’Connor)

If you are that way inclined, writing your intimate thoughts down in a diary and praying through them before our heavenly Father has the potential to bear much fruit. Queen Elizabeth II, a confessing Christian, in her 2013 Christmas Day address encouraged the habit of contemplation, prayer and keeping a diary as a means of personal reflection, and spoke from experience of discovering greater spiritual depth through the exercise. I’m keen to watch that address again.

Self-Talk To Your Soul

It makes sense that internalizing the great truths of the Bible means that we are able to talk ourselves through difficult situations. One of the best places to see this in action is in the Psalms. As one example, Keller uses Psalm 4 to show David “self-communing” or meditating as a means of working on his own troubled heart. He is being slandered by men and facing danger from his enemies. In an anguished tone he cries out to God with boldness for an audience before Him in his heavenly court. David is able to pour his concerns out before God and by the end of the Psalm feel peace enough to say, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound” (Psalm 4:7, ESV) Keller writes:

He is saying something like this: “If I have the privileges of the gospel - assurance of and access to the love and grace and friendship of God, then all other prosperity and treasure pales by comparison.” (p.232.)

This is an excellent example of a troubled heart comforting itself before God in heaven with the truth that Christ in his heart is better than all the riches or comforts of life others rely on. Or as Spurgeon says in his commentary on the Psalms: “It is better,” said someone, “to feel God’s favor one hour in our repenting soul, than to sit whole ages under the warmest sunshine that this world affords.” (p.13, Psalms volume 1, Spurgeon, The Crossway Classic Commentaries)

In Closing

In the age of the instant we need encouragement to create structures in our lives for meditative Bible reading and prayer - to open out our ‘quiet times’ into a richer, deeper contemplation of what it means to glorify God and enjoy him forever. The daily benefits are immense: we will have a deeply peaceful sense of who we really are before God and where we fit into the world.

As Keller writes, looking back on the ways he reshaped his prayer life in search of a deeper relationship with God:

The result was a spiritual liveliness and strength that this Christian minister, for all my preaching, had not had before. (pp.17-18)