"What Brought You To Write This Book?"

"To You I Lift Up My Soul" is in the final steps of publication. So I thought I might address a few questions about the book. I've already answered "From Where Did These Prayers Originate?" Now I reply to a second question I've been asked a few times:

"What brought you to write this book?"

Around 37 years ago I was a very young Christian. I had recently been converted while I was stationed at Incirlik AB, Turkey, and I found prayer something I wanted to do but stumbled over more times than I can number. Then, when I was stationed at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque NM, I tripped over a very old booklet that set me on an important path.

Martin Luther, a reformer of the church in the early 16th Century was asked by his barber, Peter, for help in prayer. It caused Luther to write what has become titled "A Simple Way to Pray ... for Master Peter, the Barber". In this booklet, Luther showed how to use the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17), and the Apostles' Creed as prayer guides. I was hooked!

From that day on I have regularly used Scripture as a format for my daily petitions. At other times I have gone in different directions, but often find myself returning to this pattern. And it bled over into my public prayers once I was ordained. I would ofttimes craft Bible-shaped prayers and confessions of sin for my congregations, and would save them for later use. Therefore, I have built up a reservoir of biblical prayers throughout the two decades I've been ordained.

Then, somewhere around 2005 an elder of the church I served in Midland, TX (Greg Eddings) recommended I publish these prayers. He felt there was a huge need for this kind of material. I dismissed the idea at that time, but it sat in the back of mind and periodically nagged me. As a matter of fact, last year (2019) I came back around to thinking through the pros and cons of doing such a thing.

 But it was the suggestion of a woman from my previous church, Carol Morgan, that put me over the fence, so to speak. I had just returned from a three-month Sabbatical in December 2019 when she emailed me. She notified me that she had been using some of my prayers that I had printed for church use several years ago. Then she inquired if I had ever thought about publishing them! In less than 24 hours I began to pull together the prayers you will find in the volume when it is finally published.

There's the story in short form.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments and I will try to answer them.

Mike