The Papa Prayer

The PAPA Prayer makes you think about your spiritual life, not in a negative way, but in a way that makes you realize why obsticles have prevented you from receiving all the joys in life that God has for us. It helps to release you from so much self-condemnation for some actions to acceptance and forgiveness of self. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to improve their prayer life.

This book could truly change your relationship with your heavenly father. Would you like a closer relationship with a Mighty God as dad? It is truly possible but it takes a little while to get your hands around this concept. Read the Book! Also read "The Rest of The Gospel"The Rest of the Gospel: When the Partial Gospel Has Worn You Out by Dan Stone and David Gregory. It fits like a fine glove with the Papa Prayer. May god bless you!

I can not recall how many books I have read on prayer-this book is absolutely the best. It accurately/scripturaly protrays the "relational" aspect of prayer. It reveals with vivid illustrations the "father heart" of God. The "atmosphere" that this book creates changes prayer life from a perfunctory duty to a privliged joy. Could not have enjoyed it more!

I started out pretty jaded against reading this book. I hate it when publishers use tag lines like, "Learn the revolutionary way to talk with God!" and use twenty-five (yes, I counted them, twenty-five!) different endorsements in the front flap to try and convince me how good the book is. But I had confidence that Larry Crabb has something worthwhile to say when he writes a book, and so I read on. My confidence was well-placed. Just as John Piper's heartbeat has been to turn the church toward the glory of God, Larry's heartbeat has increasingly been toward turning the church away from self-obsession to God-obsession, leading us from our "nutty narcissism" to cherishing communion with the Trinity. In The Papa Prayer Larry calls for our prayer life to change from a little lip service to adoration followed by a continual stream of "Gimme! Gimme!" to something much more wonderful, meaningful, Biblical, and profoundly transforming: prayer that is relational at heart. He invites us to change our typical stale self-centered paradigm of prayer to honestly Presenting ourselves to God, Attending to our misperceptions of God and letting Him correct them, Purging ourselves of the things that block our intimacy to God, and then finally Approaching God with a purified vision of who He is and who we are and why we come to Him in prayer. (Yes, that spells P-A-P-A, I'm sorry, the acronym is Larry's idea, not mine!) I'm totally inadequate to try and condense the beauty and power of this book in a few short sentences. This book has humbled me, and changed my prayer life into something much more pleasing to God and much more enlightening and transforming to my soul.

I'm so thankful for the way God speaks through Larry. I believe this book comes straight from the heart of God who desires relationship more than sacrifice. I especially liked the "Special Word to Women/Men" at the end of the book and the simplified steps: "Stand in your red dot." "Stand before the God of the Bible." "Stand naked before holiness." "Stand before God as a loved child." Great work, Larry! This is a life-changing book that replaces the boring, guilt-inducing methods of prayer taught in so many churches (as well as the "abra cadabra" magical formulas and arrogant, demanding "blab it and grab it" mantras) with honest intimacy and child-like dependence on Papa. Perhaps the songwriter understood the concepts of the PAPA prayer so many years ago when he wrote: "What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer." This is a book we will recommend wholeheartedly to all our colleagues and fellow travelers. Brenda Branson BrokenPeople.org