God, Help Me: How to Grow in Prayer

by Jim Beckman

“If you want to know who you are and why you’re here, start praying every day.”—From Chapter One You’re in your teens, your twenties, your thirties and you’re wondering—does prayer have anything at all to do with your life? You don’t pray, at least not regularly, and you don’t really know how. On the other hand, if God is who he says he is, and if he communicates with us through prayer, as Scripture and the saints and plenty of ordinary people say he does, then clearly you’re missing out on something huge. Jim Beckman will not only introduce you to the wisdom and teaching of the Church regarding prayer, he will also provide tools that will help you achieve real intimacy with God. Nothing can replace that relationship with God, and nothing can get you there except the mysterious, unfolding experience of daily prayer.

Genres: Faith, Religion, Spirituality

168 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

Reviews

[Jim Sano · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, Help Me: How to Grow in Prayer – He does so through Jim Beckman
What a refreshing, informative, and practically helpful book on something many of us struggle with – prayer. Jim Beckman has written a powerful guide and personal testimony to how to move our prayer life forward and into a more intimate relationship with God. I loved his style of writing, the research that is presented in such an assessable manner, the moving insights into real-life experiences (including his own), and a beautifully convincing explanation on why prayer is the most important habit we can attend to daily, how to achieve it, and how it may change our life. Thank you, Jim Beckman, for your contribution to my spiritual life and such an enjoyable read! Great job.

[Chad Leleux · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as deep as Time for God by Fr Jacques although the main element of the book is to portray the struggle with prayer as relatable. And it succeeded

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beckman offers some wonderful suggestions for learning how to pray, helping us to deeply engage in time with God. He explores why prayer is important in spite of having 'no time' or even being 'to busy doing good things'. He explains how prayer is a relationship with the Blessed Trinity; we can't live without it! He looks at how to pray when everything in our society turns us away from God and towards ourselves, helping us to address deep questions raised by a pagan worldview. He explores prayer as an intimate relationship with God, helping us to engage our heart, dealing with distractions and temptations not to pray, how to pray when we feel far from God, how to develop 'interior life', how to engage our imagination to fuel our prayer, and how to make prayer a real habit. He quotes from saints who specialised in prayer: St Teresa of Avila, Mother Teresa, St Therese of Lisieux, St John of the Cross, from the Catechism and also from St Ignatius and his many teachings on prayer. Reviewed for www.GoodReadingGuide.com

[Emily Sanker · Rating 2 out of 5]

the last thing I wrote in this book was “the more I read this, the less desirable a relationship with God sounds.”

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply put, one of my favourite books on prayer. Jim Beckman writes in a way that is simple enough for any beginner to pick up and understand, but challenging enough that nobody will pick up this book and not leave changed. I will probably return to my highlighted portions for the rest of my life as I continually revisit my daily prayer and try to grow in intimacy with God. The simplicity is honestly very refreshing, and reminds us that the fundamental reality of a relationship with God is simple - very difficult at times, but ultimately simple.

Please read this if you are interested in being challenged in and growing in your faith!

[Hannah Beran · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the book God, Help Me How to Grow in Prayer by Jim Beckman, I learned many new concepts about prayer. I liked the different approaches that Beckman teaches to prayer, such as starting and ending your personal prayer with Scripture. In the end, Beckman widened my perspective on the power of communication to God. I am planning on applying the new elements that I learned to my prayer life. I highly recommend this book to anyone who doesn’t feel motivated to pray every day.

[Melissa Howe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was pretty good. It is very imformative and a good compilation of ways to pray as well as why we should and what happens when we do. Jim is a great man and this book is worth the read.

[Rachel Brungardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my spiritual life. Highly recommended to anyone who takes their prayer life seriously and wants to go to the "next level".