Title: Transforming Prayer: How Everything Changes When You Seek God’s Face
Author: Daniel Henderson
Summary
Daniel Henderson gives some great insight into our prayer lives and the content of our prayers. The best way to summarize this book can partially be found in the subtitle. Seek God’s face; not His hand. In essence, what Henderson is saying, is that we should focus our prayer on the worship of God, through the Holy Spirit, instead of seeking God’s “magical powers” to execute miracles in our lists of things we ask.
Interesting Pieces
The first half or more of this book lays the ground work for a God’s-face-seeking prayer life. In the last quarter of the book, Henderson gives some practical tools we can incorporate this transforming prayer into our lives.
On page 163, Henderson begins explaining the 4/4 model for prayer. This prayer pattern is modeled after the Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6). The 4/4 prayer pattern is similar to a music conductor. The first swipe up is “upward.” We praise God for who He is! The second step is downward; we respond personally to God’s revelation. Then, the left swipe is called the inward stroke, where we give God our requests. The fourth stroke is to the right and is labeled “outward.” Here we focus on readiness, asking God to lead us as we head into the world. The final stroke is upward once more, ending where we started, praising God for who He is!
The next couple of chapters give specific examples of how to use this model personally. He walks through a couple of different passages of scripture using the 4/4 model. Then, he fills the Appendices with a myriad of excellent resources. He lists the specific face-to-face encounters with God in the Old and New Testament, gives specific scriptures of Jesus’s prayers, lists Paul’s prayers in scripture, and more.
Review
Overall, my take on this book is that it started slowly. It took me multiple times of picking up the book to get through the first two-thirds or so. Once Henderson started giving some practical examples of how to incorporate what he was talking about, my reading pace started to pick up immensely. I probably would not recommend this book to a new Christian. I believe it’s more targeted to someone who has been praying for a long time and needs to be re-aligned. This book focuses on the incorrect ways to pray before getting into a God’s-face-seeking style of prayer. If I did recommend this book, depending on how much they love to read, I may suggest starting at chapter 13, where Henderson begins talking about the Lord’s prayer as a model.
Where to Buy
If you are interested in purchasing this book, you can find Transforming Prayer by Daniel Henderson on Amazon.
