Misleading and Repetitious

This is a review of a book I recently read. I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

LIVING CLOSE TO GOD WHEN YOU'RE NOT GOOD AT IT by Gene Edwards begins by describing the difficulty of developing an intimacy with God during the course of a work day. He remembers a time when he would return from work and realize that he had not thought of God even once during the course of his work day. He had been, for all practical purposes, a "temporary Christian atheist." Even when Mr. Edwards was working in full-time Christian ministry, he felt a lack of fellowship with his Lord. This early description of human frustration with finding fellowship with God is perhaps the best part of the book. After this, he begins telling how he found that fellowship, and I found this part misleading and overly repetitious.

The book is misleading because Mr. Edwards says that he found that the traditional recommendations of prayer and Bible reading to be of little value, and that books on spiritual formation and the lives of the saints were also of little value because they were also about prayer and Scripture. He says he was a man of action. He could not imagine praying for an hour each day, and he failed to find that Bible reading made him feel any closer to God. He sought other ways, but ironically, and apparently without his awareness, what he discovered to create that fellowship and intimacy with Christ was prayer and Scripture! The reason he failed to notice that he had discovered other ways to read Scripture and to pray, which are actually described in books about prayer and spiritual formation, is because he had several misconceptions.

Misconception #1: A person does not need to read Scripture to be spiritual. What convinced him of this is that illiterate people can be spiritual. That is true enough, but even an illiterate person must hear God's word being read or recited. Whether read or heard, we must do more than recognize a sequence of words. We must be active listeners or readers. As active listeners or readers, we remember or memorize portions (often quite small), meditate on them, listen to God speaking to us in them, recall them in spare moments during the day, and use them appropriately. This active reading and listening is, in fact, what Mr. Edwards recommends, but he does not call it Bible reading.

Misconception #2: Prayers of spiritual giants are always long, often an hour or more. On the contrary, many of the prayers of David and Paul were quite short. Prayer need not be long. We can talk to God during spare moments in a day, as Mr. Edwards suggests, and those short talks with God are indeed prayers even if they are short.

Misconception #3: Prayer is asking, nothing more. Again, Scriptural examples show prayer to be much more than asking. Expressing our praise, awe, and love for God is entirely appropriate in prayer whether spoken silently, whispered, or even sung. Mr. Edwards learned to express his love to Christ in words, and in so doing he was praying whether he calls it praying or not.

So if you are not good at living close to God, don't disparage Bible reading and prayer. If your Bible reading and prayer is not communication with God, you may need to enrich your communication. Study of Scriptural prayers and reading books on spiritual formation may then be useful in helping you find ways to enrich your communication with God. Read in this way, even Mr. Edwards' book may be helpful.