Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller
Week 11: Chapter 10 — A Daily Practice: How to Pray
Read Chapter 10 of Prayer by Timothy Keller. Primary Scripture: Daniel 6:10; Mark 1:35.
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Keller has now built a rich theology of prayer; in this chapter he gets extraordinarily practical, offering daily, weekly, and monthly patterns and exercises that bring everything he has taught into a sustainable rhythm. Read this chapter with a pen in hand—you are meant to actually do something with it.
Discussion Questions
7 questions1.Keller notes that both Daniel and Jesus had fixed, daily times of prayer—not because they were rigid but because they understood that consistent access to God requires consistent habits. What is the relationship between habit and authenticity in prayer? Can a scheduled prayer time be genuine, or does scheduling it make it merely mechanical?
2.Keller outlines a basic pattern for daily prayer that moves through adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication (sometimes called ACTS). He argues this structure is not a cage but a scaffold—it helps us not to forget whole dimensions of prayer. Have you ever used a structured approach to prayer? What did you find helpful or unhelpful about it?
3.Keller recommends spending significant time in the Psalms as a daily practice, using them both for content (learning what to say to God) and for emotional honesty (finding words for what you actually feel). Is there a specific Psalm you have returned to repeatedly? What is it, and what keeps drawing you back?
a.If you were to pick one Psalm to pray through this week, which would it be and why?
b.What would it look like to 'pray through' a Psalm rather than simply reading it?
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