Craig T. Owens

I grew up with this axiom ringing in my ears: “The Church moves forward on its knees.” Lately, however, it seems that the Church is attempting to move forward in every way she can think of, and only turning to prayer as a last resort. Ralph Lehman has given the Church a clarion call to return to its only reliable posture for success: Constant, unwavering prayer. Longing For A Changed World will challenge you to return to this dependable supply of prayer once again.

This book is written as a series of short challenges for us to (re)consider how indispensable prayer is for both the individual Christian and the collective Church. Ralph recalls both biblical and historical revivals in which prayer played the vital role of bringing people back to their knees in humble prayer to God for His help.

The subtitle of this book is Meditations on prayer for revival. At the close of each chapter, Ralph has included questions on which you can reflect. I found these introspective questions to be quite confronting as I compared my prayer life to those revival-starting prayers of the past.

Ralph mentions that women have an almost innate desire and propensity to turn to God in prayer, while men typically try to “fix” things themselves before asking for prayer. So Longing For A Changed World is really targeted at the men in our churches, although anyone who desires to see the Church revived will benefit greatly from reading this book.

Please don’t put off prayer any longer! This book will help rekindle your passion for prayer!

I am a Waxed Tablet Publications book reviewer.