Have you heard, for example, that apocryphal story of Martin Luther? Apparently he was asked one evening what he’d be doing the next day and he replied, ‘Work, work from early till late. In fact I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.’

One of my favourite books on prayer is Michael Reeves’ Enjoy Your Prayer Life. I like its honesty, its directness and particularly the fact that it is short. The last thing you need when you are struggling to pray is a doorstop of a book. It’s the kind of thing you can read in half and hour. Each chapter is a page and a half. Simple, easy and accessible.

One of my favourite bits – perhaps it resonates because I’ve heard exactly this many times – is in the chapter titled, We’re All Sinners. Let me share a section with you:

I find, particularly when I’m thinking of prayer as an abstract exercise, it’s so easy to forget that basic dynamic of the gospel and then wonder what it is I’m missing in prayer. This is where I think we can be unmanned by those fearsome stories of ‘the great prayers’.

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