Authors J I Packer and Carolyn Nystrom quote British bishop John Ryle who once famously said: “Tell me what a man’s prayers are, and I will soon tell you the state of his soul.”

If that’s the case, then both the authors and the good bishop would have had a field day with my soul, since it’s only been in the last few years that I have given prayer much thought. It never occurred to me that to ensure a lasting relationship, it’s not enough to toss a few bon mots God’s way before nodding off to sleep -- you actually have to talk. Or “Duh!” as Bart Simpson might say.

Nystrom and Packer would have lumped me into the category of those who “get joyfully musty in a library researching prayer, yet end up with no time before sleep sets in,” in which case they would rightfully call me “not a praying person.”

Fortunately, we are forgiven, because even the most saintly among us have struggled with prayer, either with staying focused, or staying awake. “Our minds lose focus…randomly dreaming…our words feel hollow and unreal.” Who hasn’t experienced such times?

Which is why this book was so helpful. It’s comprehensive–no top ten tips on how to pray better--just a deep and thorough unpacking of all that prayer can be, especially if it “issues from the authentically Christian heart leading the authentic Christian life.”

The authors explain variations on prayer, like “brooding”–a distinctly Christian form of meditation that is “thinking in God’s presence.”

I discovered we can pray many different ways: by making up our own prayers, using a prepared liturgy, lifting prayers straight from Scripture or by via lectio meditation. (In such “holy reading” I am to ponder the biblical words, ask how life is touched by this passage, what it shows God doing, and what it invites me to do. Then I would verbally respond to God.)

I finally understood why praise is neither a bargaining chip with God to ensure good outcomes for us, nor something that paints Him as an egomaniac requiring constant stroking. Praise, the “giving of honour…our shared appreciation of God and his ways, brings him close to us,” and in so doing, “communicates some new revelation of his greatness.”

Additionally, it gets us into the habit of what we’ll be doing later in heaven, and it has the added bonus, especially when done corporately, of drawing in those who are “spiritually adrift.”

The whole issue of prayer requests became clear, too – why some prayers never appear to get answered, or why the answer doesn’t look much like the request at all.

The problem may rest with us – quite simply, we need to learn how to ask, just as a child who wants juice must learn to utter more than a grunt. We must also examine ourselves to see, as St Paul puts it, “whether you are in the faith.”

Self-examination enables us to recognize how God may review our requests: “Why do you think that what you are asking is in line with my will? Would something other than the precise thing you now request satisfy you equally? Tell me.”

Before God moves, the authors suggest three things must be in place: our adoptive relationship with Him, his mighty promises, and personal faith conjoined with purity of heart.

At the same time, there’s no need to anxiously fret that we’ve “got the prayer right,” writes Nystrom, since “God fixes our prayers on the way up. If he does not answer the prayer we made, he will answer the prayer we should have made.”

Basically, it goes back to praise: “God loves to be petitioned in a way that shows he is appreciated as the source of all that is good. This glorifies him.”

Likewise with seemingly unanswered prayers--even when asked in the right way, with right reason and faith. We are to praise, persist, and not despair, since God has reasons to make us wait: purging our motives, shaping his giving in a natural way (and not a magical poof-you’re-better way) and building our character.

Lastly, the authors emphasize the importance of corporate prayer, primarily because the “popular form of pietism that we now face…this priority of personal relationship with God pulled out of shape… teaches us to see ourselves as distinct from…all existing forms of society.”

Not being involved with corporate worship is no less than “emotional withdrawal… Christianity is life together.”

Thanks to the clarity and depth of books like this – plus good spiritual direction -- there’s still hope for the state of our souls.