Several years ago, when author Tim Challies downloaded an app that promised to help him improve his memory, he found that it effectively assisted him to memorize devotional poetry. He repeated the poems to himself till they were deeply woven into his mind and heart.
Challies had no way of foreseeing how God would use this spiritual practice to help him in the years ahead. He writes, “Little did I know how much I would rely on them when the Lord called me to endure a time of great suffering and sorrow. Those poems gave me words to express my griefs, truths to comfort my distress, and petitions to lift to the Lord. I learned to borrow the words of these poets, to make their words the expression of my heart, and to lift their words to the Lord as prayers.”
Each of the 50 prayer poems is supplemented with a short devotion, relevant Scripture verses, and application questions. Challies’ goal is that readers will make memorizing prayer poetry an integral part of their faith journey.
This reader found Challies' ability to ask compassionate, yet spiritually probing, application questions especially refreshing. For example, Challies ends his selection on “A Prayer for the Salvation of the Lost” with these questions: “Do you pray for your loved ones who do not yet know the Lord? And do you pray with a humble confidence, trusting that it is God’s great delight to seek and save the lost? Is there any sense in which you think you were somehow more deserving to receive God’s mercy or more likely to be a recipient of it?”
Pilgrim Prayers offers readers an accessible, relevant avenue to grow in faith and love for God. (Zondervan)