“Pray, Write, Grow: Cultivating Prayer and Writing Together” by Ed Cyzewski
This book is short in length, just 82 pages, but it encourages the reader to view / use the acts of writing and praying as a partnership in growing in their faith. The author doesn’t offer a step-by-step plan for how to do this but rather a set of tools or exercises to use to assist one in growing in the practice of writing and in the discipline of praying. He offers a number of personal examples to illustrate his points and gives some practical advice as well.The chapters include the following:
- Introduction
- Creating Space to Pray and Write
- Learning to Be Present
- Do You Want to Be Made Well?
- Breaking Through with Self-Awareness
- Discernment Through Prayer and Writing
- We Pray and Write by Faith
- Getting Started
- Afterword
The ideas in the book would also be useful to anyone wanting to grow in their faith whether they want to become a writer or not. Sometimes the mere act of writing out our prayers can have a faith building result. One quote that stood out was this.
What we pray about often provides something to write about, and what we write about often provides something to pray about.
Finally, this brings to mind this quote of Jesus from Matthew & Luke and another from Proverbs.
Matthew 6:21 NASB for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Luke 12:34 NASB For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Proverbs 4:23 NASB Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.
Cyzewski, Ed. Pray, Write, Grow: Cultivating Prayer and Writing Together. 2015.
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