Book Review: The Papa Prayer

If you have read the “100 Things About Me,” you may recall number two: I struggle with prayer. More than once in the past year I have described my prayer life as sending up orders to a cosmic short-order cook. So when I picked up a copy of The Papa Prayer by Larry Crabb and read through some passages, I only briefly questioned the voice in my head telling me I needed to buy the book. Of course, what better way to rationalize putting off actually praying than to read about improving your prayer life?

Apparently, not only am I not alone, but my experience seems to be common among believers. In fact, Crabb suggests that the reason I struggle with prayer is because I see my prayers as akin to placing orders with a cosmic short-order cook. He writes, "Most of us find our prayer lives dominated by asking God for things. For most of us, that’s what prayer is. Changing our minds about the point of prayer will be tough. The wrong idea is nearly universal and deeply imbedded in our thinking. But if we hold to it, if we keep on believing prayer is more about getting things than getting God, not only will we eventually get thoroughly confused when prayer doesn’t “work,” but talking to God will at some point feel boring as well, if we’re honest. … I’m starting to think that getting fed up with asking God for what we want is not such a bad thing. It prepares us for relational prayer."

When I read this passage I realized that my dissatisfaction with my prayer life was a result of my prayers being ultimately about me. Even when I use the ACTS approach (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication), my motivation is to get to the “S.” The best thing about The Papa Prayer is Crabb’s consistent emphasis on what he calls “relational prayer”: "The chief purpose of prayer is to get to know God, to deepen our relationship with Him, to nourish the life of God He’s already placed within us, and to do it all to satisfy His desire for relationship with us."

Not that I didn’t basically know this already, but Crabb very effectively demonstrates how we can come to God as if we are pursuing Him when we are still ultimately pursuing our own interests. He says, "In this life, the feeling of satisfaction that comes when a marriage improves or a child turns back to God or…a ministry takes off feels stronger and brings more pleasure than our experience of God. We are foolish to dampen that pleasure, but we are in danger of living for it, of thinking that blessings from God satisfy our souls more deeply than God Himself."

The second aspect of the book I found to be beneficial was in the section on “purging yourself of anything that blocks your relationship with God.” Crabb believes that everything that is wrong in our lives is somehow related to what is going on in our primary relationships and that relational sin starts with fear. We don’t trust God to take care of us, so we attempt to take care of ourselves and subsequently sin against others. He gives some excellent examples of how this plays out in life.

In a nutshell, The Papa Prayer approach is as follows:

P: Present yourself to God authentically; be real with Him as you are with no one else.

A: Attend to how you are thinking of God, how you picture Him as you are talking to Him, and then modify your perception to fit who He tells you He is. (He directs us to Revelation chapter one for a proper view of God.)

P: Purge yourself of your relational faults by taking an inventory of how you put your interests ahead of His and getting rid of anything that blocks intimacy with Him.

A: Approach God just as you are, tuning into your passion to know Him and to honor Him above all others.

Herein lies my problem with Crabb’s approach. In elaborating on the first point, “present yourself to God” Crabb describes this step as finding your “red dot.” The point is to be honest with God about how you feel and where you are spiritually. I’ve been thinking about this for several days, and I can’t get beyond the conviction that my prayers shouldn’t begin with ME. Maybe it’s just that the ACTS approach has been drilled into me, but it seems appropriate to me to think about who you’re dealing with FIRST in order to get the proper perspective of yourself.

Two more warnings: (1) The first half of the book was somewhat boring to me as it seemed to be an extensive and repetitive introduction to the PAPA approach. (2) Crabb is a psychologist, and every now and then, he veers into what I call psychobabble. However, I am willing to admit that my sensitivity to this is probably a matter of personal taste as I am all about DOCTRINE. No touchy feely here.

Criticisms aside, I would recommend this book to anyone who struggles with prayer or who could simply use some instruction in praying. The substance of the book and the examples from Crabb’s practice are beneficial. However, I still intend to use the ACTS approach. And after reading the book, for all of its helpful content, I know that the only way my prayer life is going to improve is for me TO PRAY.