Authors Isbell and Bill put together an excellent self-help book on prayer. The nine chapters are:

1. A New Way to Pray
2. What Lies Beneath the Words
3. God in Action: Finding Our Verbs
4. Images of an Active-Tense God: Nouns That Fit the Verbs
5. Hope, Beauty and Depth: Adjectives and Adverbs
6. Unpacking Meaning: Shared Language and Authentic Prayer
7. Jesus, the Word of God, and Our Words
8. Beyond Words: Other Ways of Communicaing–Or Not
9. Gospel Means Good News: And News Is New, by Definition

The first step is to write the keywords we already use in prayer. Then we consider our choice of verbs and what that means within each type of prayer.

This is not a book of right answers, rather it is a guide to walk through the art of becoming better at communicating with God. Perhaps the most difficult lesson is learning to be quiet while listening for God’s Word.

Mike Lawrence