Book Review of "Prayer" by Ole Hallesby
If one
measure of the importance of a book is "has the book made any real
tangible change in the way you live your life?", then the book simply
titled "Prayer", written by Ole Hallesby in the 1931 is
absolutely important. In fact, for me
personally, this book might be at the top of the list (excluding the
Bible). The weird thing is that I think
I read it only once or twice (until recently - April 2023). Rereading it recently made me realize how
deeply embedded in my psyche some of the points in the book had become.
I read
this book some time during my first year in college (1979-1980). I do not recall how I came across it, but I'm
guessing someone gave me their copy because I had no money to buy books. At the time, I was interested in learning
about prayer and reading all of the books I could get my hands on. So, of course, I read a lot of books by E.M.
Bounds and so on. But I think the one by
Hallesby was one of the first I read, probably because of its simple
title. His main point is unique among
any teaching on prayer I read then and any teaching I've heard since. His fundamental point is that "prayer is
helplessness." For me, it was a
revolutionary starting place.
The funny
thing is that the book faded into almost an "ancient text" quality in
my mind. By that I mean that I have
always remembered the main point of the book and I knew it came from that book
(although I thought the author's name was O'Hallesby until very recently), but
I never went back and read it again.
There have been a few times in the 40+ years since I read it the first
time that I said "I should go back and read it again." But, I could never find it in my collection
of books and so I would eventually forget again and move on. Also, oddly, I've never heard anyone else
mention this book and I've never heard anyone else present prayer the way it is
presented in this book. Yet the book has
had multiple multiple printings and has sold many copies. I did, recently, come across a podcast where
this book was reviewed and the reviewers on the podcast also kind of marveled
that the book was not more well known among Christians. Also, in the podcast they also mentioned that
they thought the author's name was O'Hallesby too, which is kind of funny.
What's so
great about it? First, it will deepen
your understanding of prayer and second, it will motivate you to pray. I sometimes teach lessons on the principles
of prayer and I often find myself asking the question "isn't it more
important to just spend time actually praying than to spend time learning about
prayer?" But then I hearken back to
an illustration I heard somewhere about using a shovel. If you're using the wrong end of the shovel,
you'll eventually give up on the tool as useless, but if someone shows you how
to use it, you find it is quite effective.
The same is true for prayer - it is worth learning how to use the
"tool" of prayer properly. Oh,
and by the way, when I recently re-read the book, I discovered that the analogy
I have been using of the shovel came directly from the book. I remembered the analogy for 40 years, though
I had long forgotten where it came from.
The one
thing I really can't figure out is why the idea of "prayer is
helplessness" isn't brought out or emphasized by anyone else (that I know
of). The question is: why pray?
Isn't God going to do what He's going to do? Is prayer about convincing a reluctant God to
do something He'd rather not do? Or is it
just that prayer is one of those things God tells us to do, so we should do it
and not ask why? No - as Hallesby shows
from scripture - prayer is the cry of an infant to which it's mother responds. We have too high of an opinion of ourselves
when we bring deep theological discussions of predestination into prayer. In prayer, more than anything else, we have
to "become as little children."
Prayer is not for those who can take care of things themselves. Prayer is not for independent adults. Prayer is the cry of the helpless. If you're not that helpless, then maybe your
only real prayer should be "God, help me to realize how helpless I really
am"!
There are
some aspects of the book that seem a bit dated - after all, it was written almost
100 years ago. But Hallesby has a series
of excellent and insightful thoughts about prayer - different types of prayer
and impediments to prayer. His thoughts
are always very directly practical and he plainly addresses many questions that
many of us have had about prayer.
It's a
pretty short, clearly written book. For
Christians seeking to understand the basic principles of prayer, I consider it
a must read.
