Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home [Hardcover]

Richard J. Foster (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 20, 2002

Best-selling author Richard J. Foster offers a warm, compelling, and sensitive primer on prayer, helping us to understand, experience, and practice it in its many forms-from the simple prayer of beginning again to unceasing prayer. He clarifies the prayer process, answers common misconceptions, and shows the way into prayers of contemplation, healing, blessing, forgiveness, and rest.

Coming to prayer is like coming home, Foster says. "Nothing feels more right, more like what we are created to be and to do. Yet at the same time we are confronted with great mysteries. Who hasn't struggled with the puzzle of unanswered prayer? Who hasn't wondered how a finite person can commune with the infinite Creator of the universe? Who hasn't questioned whether prayer isn't merely psychological manipulation after all? We do our best, of course, to answer these knotty questions but when all is said and done, there is a sense in which these mysteries remain unanswered and unanswerable . . . At such times we must learn to become comfortable with the mystery."

Foster shows how prayer can move us inward into personal transformation, upward toward intimacy with God, and outward to minister to others. He leads us beyond questions to a deeper understanding and practice of prayer, bringing us closer to God, to ourselves, and to our community.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There are hundreds of books on prayer, and much of the advice they contain is likely to be the same. So what distinguishes these books? Call it a kind of wisdom, a sense that here's someone who knows something of God's heart. A good example can be found in this fine book by the Quaker writer and teacher Richard Foster. The author of the bestselling Celebration of Discipline explores various aspects of prayer, which he defines in one place as "the human response to the perpetual outpouring of love by which God lays siege to every soul." Beginning with the simplest forms of prayer--what he calls "ordinary people bringing ... ordinary concerns to a loving and compassionate Father"--he then explores the deeper places where prayer becomes not simply petition but a way of life. He writes of prayer of adoration and rest, sacramental prayer, meditation, and contemplation, and in the final section of the book moves outward into ministry, where prayer meets the needs of the world. In each chapter Foster defines, describes, and gives helpful examples. Above all he writes with grace--in both the artistic and spiritual senses. --Doug Thorpe

From Library Journal

Foster, Quaker theologian and best-selling author, provides an excellent and comprehensive survey of 21 forms of Christian prayer. He groups the sections around three movements (inward, upward, and outward) which address three human needs (transformation, intimacy, and ministry). Foster presents the best thinking of various church traditions to help the reader feel drawn to prayer and to a restored and deeper relationship with oneself, God, and others. This is one of the best, most comprehensive, yet accessible introductions to prayer that this reviewer has seen. Highly recommended for all libraries.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1 edition (August 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060628464
• ISBN-13: 978-0060628468
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,721 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #20 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > Prayer

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 73 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Guide to a Life of Prayer March 10, 2003

By Paul M. Dubuc

Format:Hardcover

This book is an excellent introduction to, and survey of, the practice and experience of prayer for Christians. Richard Foster draws from many different traditions and experiences and distills them into this very fine and accessible work. It's very practical, unpretentious and inspiring. Foster helps us examine the many facets of prayer grouped according to three intentions on personal transformation, intimacy with God and ministry to others. Among its 21 chapters you may find aspects of prayer that are very familiar to you (maybe you had never thought of them as prayer before) along with encouragement to focus and deepen your efforts in those areas. Other types of prayer may be completely foreign to you but offer an invitation to explore. For those who want to take prayer more seriously this book is a very good place to begin. It is not an introduction in the sense of being superficial or shallow. It treats each aspect of prayer in enough depth to get the willing reader well on his or her way to a more effective and vital life of prayer. But it also shows us prayer as a vast, life long and life changing endeavor and points to the work of others who have explored the various disciplines of prayer more deeply. This books is essential reading.

68 of 71 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book to Share with Friends December 15, 1999

By Bruce A. White

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is the best book I have ever read on prayer. Foster describes many different aspects of prayer, some familiar and some less known. I have read many books on prayer, but this stands above all the others in making prayer understandable and usable in the average person's life experience. I have purchased four more copies and given them to friends. After you've read it, you will want to share it, too. This is a book to read, re-read and re-re-read until it becomes a part of the fabric of your life. I can not recommend this book highly enough.

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Prayer From the Heart April 17, 2000

By John C. Tittle

Format:Hardcover

Foster is a master of drawing together all the strengths of the Christian tradition for his readers to benefit from. This book transcends denominationalism--it is a gift to the entire body of Christ. It is a book written from Foster's heart. "Prayer" is a book that demands to be more than read. It needs to be prayed through, meditated on, and re-read. Once again Foster writes with clarity, conviction, and winsomeness. Foster does not merely talk of prayer in this book. Each page seeps with insights that can only come by living a life of prayer. His layout of the book has a rhythm and seemless flow to it. The different descriptions of prayer greatly helped me to have a deeper understanding of the different kinds of approaches we have to God in prayer. Foster's book has invigorated me to hunger for the Holy more and more in my life.