Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge Author: Mark Batterson | Language: English | ISBN:
B008EGXTYG | Format: PDF
Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge Description
Do you pray as often and as boldly as you want to? There is a way to experience a deeper, more passionate, persistent, and intimate prayer life.
Drawing from forty days of true stories, Mark Batterson applies the principles of his New York Times bestselling book The Circle Maker to teach us a new way to pray. As thousands of readers quickly became many tens of thousands, true stories of miraculous and inspiring answers to prayer began to pour in, and as those stories were shared, others were bolstered in their faith to pray with even more boldness.
In Draw the Circle, through forty true, faith-building stories of God's answers to prayer, daily scriptures and prayer prompts, Batterson inspires you to pray and keep praying like never before. Begin a lifetime of watching God work. Believe in the God who can do all things. Experience the power of bold prayer and even bolder faith in Draw the Circle.
- File Size: 1612 KB
- Print Length: 240 pages
- Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 5 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
- Publisher: Zondervan (December 18, 2012)
- Sold by: HarperCollins Publishing
- Language: English
- ASIN: B008EGXTYG
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,611 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #3
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > Meditations - #5
in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > Meditations - #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian Living > Prayer
- #3
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > Meditations - #5
in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > Meditations - #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian Living > Prayer
First of all, this book is a 40 day devotional with most of the chapters ranging from 4-5 pages, but I didn't take the 40 days to read the book. I read through it whenever I had a moment to spare. Most of the chapters only took a precious few minutes to read through, but the content stuck with me. "Draw the Circle" changed my outlook on prayer. Prayer isn't something we should just do when we get up in the morning, go to bed at night, or something to say before meals. Don't get me wrong...I make an effort to pray throughout the day, but this book has definitely changed HOW I pray.
The author (Mark Batterson) explains the importance of having faith when we pray. Meaning if we are going to pray to God asking for a miracle, shouldn't we have faith that God will do it? We shouldn't be doubtful of God's ability to answer our prayers just because He may not answer them the way we expected. Batterson even suggests "drawing a circle" around the things we are praying for. For example, Batterson is a church planter and when his church was trying to figure out where God wanted them to plant their next church, Batterson took a prayer walk around the perimeter of the area they were looking at. He prayed through a 4 mile circle, asking God to show Him where to plant their church. And God provided an answer to Him.
There is no gimmick involved in the truths Batterson writes about. If we pray for God to show us miraculous things, He will. "Draw a Circle" around your failing marriage, your illness, your child who doesn't know Christ and your money problems. Pray without ceasing and see God answer in miraculous ways. Sometimes He answers yes, sometimes no, and sometimes it's a not yet but He always answers. Have faith that God will do what He says.
I wanted to like this book. No, that's not true. I wanted to love this book. Before requesting a copy to review, I had read several other reviews first, and saw many people talk about how life-changing it was. How it had revolutionized their prayer life.
I am sad to report that this wasn't the case for me. I did like it. It had some interesting and inspiring stories, some great quotes and reminders, and some good suggestions. It was just missing one thing: structure.
What I had expected, needed, and was hoping for was a linear approach, for want of a better term. To be truly useful to me, and for me to recommend it to others, a book like this needs to take a staircase approach. Each day's reading, story, theme, etc. should build on the day before. Ideally, a set of sub-themes would be great for a book like this (i.e. Day 1 - 10 "Press into God", Day 11-20 "Centering Your Circle on His Will", Day 21-30 "An Expectant Circle", Day 31-40 "Looking Beyond the Possible"...or something like that).
Unfortunately, each day seemed random. There was no follow-through in theme (beyond "pray, expect an answer, trust God", which was woven through most of it), and no momentum from one day to the next. As a result, I didn't feel like I really got anywhere, in part because the book didn't feel like it was going anywhere.
Having voiced that criticism, there is some other criticism--even rebuke--that Mark Batterson and Draw the Circle have received that I need to address. Some have connected the "circle drawing" to witchcraft, while others have insisted that Batterson is promoting a "health and wealth" or a "name it and claim it" theology and approach to prayer.
Both of these criticisms are patently absurd.
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