Prayer by O. Hallsby

I seldom recommend translations from the Norwegian but will make an enthusiastic exception in this case. Years ago when I was a student I heard a fellow student recommend this book. He said it had revolutionised his prayer life. Perversely I shied away from such keenness but nearly sixty years later I reckoned I was ready to face this soul shaking book. Now I wish I had read it when I was told to!

It is a brief book barely making two hundred pages in a paperback edition. It is an old fashioned book with anecdotes sparse but expositions aplenty. Dr Hallsby was born early in the twentieth century. He wrote long before information technology took its megabyte from our lives yet his book is testimony to the power of the written word. It bears the marks of struggle. The author suffered two years in a Nazi concentration camp and the anger of secularists of his native land when he sought to defend the truths of the Gospel.

The structure of the book is unremarkable

Author's Preface
Chapter One: What Prayer Is
Chapter Two: Difficulties in Prayer
Chapter Three: Prayer As Work
Chapter Four: Wrestling in Prayer, I
Chapter Five: Wrestling in Prayer, II
Chapter Six: The Misuse of Prayer
Chapter Seven: The Meaning of Prayer
Chapter Eight: Forms of Prayer
Chapter Nine: Problems of Prayer
Chapter Ten: The School of Prayer
Chapter Eleven: The Spirit of Prayer

Within this structure great and essential themes emerge. Prayer is the opening of the heart to the Lord Jesus. It is a weapon that exists for the glory of God not the convenience of mankind. It should be deployed whenever work is attempted for Him and for the generations to come, a spiritual legacy for the future. Prayer requires humility, not telling God what to do. Before such a God total honesty is essential. When we wrestle in prayer it is not against God but ourselves and our selfishness. Prayer involves pain. The problems and queries we have about prayer often arise from our misunderstanding of what prayer is. At the centre of the universe as its focus, its reason for being, its pivot of existence is God; not us. Prayer is not the manipulation of a supernatural being to do our will. That is magic. It is of God, for God, His chosen path into the heart of man. It is a means by which He gets glory and that is its purpose.

This is a book to be read, digested and acted upon, but be warned. It could indeed revolutionise your prayer life.

Peter M. Grinham 16th June 2015