Customer Reviews

Praying Our Experiences

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I first read Praying Our Experiences when it first came out 20 years ago. This concise guide to prayer touched me deeply and opened me to the wide world of praying. I bought copies for friends, family members, and used it with classes that I taught. The praise for the book has been uniformly enthusiastic. Prayer is not just for clergy, rabbis, monks, and nuns: we can all pray, whenever and wherever we are, in any way that we can. The most important prayer comes from the heart and is honest communication about the real events of our lives. POE may be short in pages, but it is long on wisdom. I have returned to my well-worn copy over and over in the last 20 years whenever I have needed a reminder that the Creator is always willing to listen to prayers from my experience. I am delighted that the editors offer this anniversary edition: well done. The book is a gift to all of us.

All to often prayer is viewed as a perfunctory task that we go through in order to communicate with God. Our prayers may consist of flowery words that are not relevant to our lives and sound artificial to our ears. Is it a surprise then that people have such great difficulty with prayer?

Joseph Schmidt challenges us in breaking the above view by suggesting another alternative in communicating with God. Why not honestly reflect on the daily events of our lives and become aware of God's word and work in them? In other words, pray our experiences which give meaning to life instead of babbling to God about things that don't touch us.

If God is the source of our existence then we can know God through our experiences. Prayer takes on a new meaning and enables us to enter in life more fully and intereact intimately with the God who Loves us for who and what we are. Such a notion is radical and gives us a new perspective in honestly sharing ourselves with God.

Praying Our Experiences shows us the process of how we can get to know ourselves as God knows us. Step by step Schmidt introduces us to a way in which we can begin the experience. This is not a formula driven book on prayer where you learn techniques for praying. Our author presents to us a guide to enable you to develop a more fully developed prayer life devoid of the barriers which we place in the way of knowing ourselves and God. Such a book is an excellent guide in helping you to achieve a deeper intimacy of God in your prayer life.

I had been struggling in my prayer life, when I first read this book. I just did not feel like I was connecting with God when I got on my knees and "Prayed."
Prayer supplements your relationship with Christ; prayer is the conversation you have with God. This book points out where else in your daily life you pray. For me this was my primary form of prayer and I did not even know it.
This book is a MUST read. It is only 80 pages or something like that and is written in very simple terms. Give this book to yourself and someone you love.

Having read two other books by Brother Joe I was looking for something else and came cross this small volume. Brother Joe takes the reader along a path of enlightenment for these days. If one finds oneself at the short end for prayer time or finds that the work has really intruded into his or hers private time Brother Joe offers a choice. He shows how one can take what is perceived as the ordinary and the mundane and find a souce of prayer. I found the suggestions good and have used some in my daily prayer.Thanks again Brother Joe you have had three successes in my life.