Rick Hamlin - 10 Prayers You Cant Live Without: How to Talk to God About Everything

Funny. Healing. Thoroughly attention-grabbing. Peek into Rick Hamlin's transparent prayer life and the prayers of many others such as Corrie Ten Boom, Catherine Marshall, and Mother Teresa.

MARION BOND WEST, author of Praying for My Life

If you find yourself struggling with prayer, as many people do, Rick Hamlin's 10 Prayers You Can't Live Without is here to liberate you. Through anecdotes from Guideposts readers and the wisdom he has acquired from a lifetime of praying, Hamlin shows how prayer can become an effortless conversation with God. And he does so in a humorous, inspiring, and poignant way. Highly recommended!

MARCIA FORD, author of The Indispensable Guide to Practically Everything: Prayer

I love this book! I pray that you will read it and experience the power of prayer in your life.

JON GORDON, author of The Energy Bus and The Seed

Rick Hamlin is a praying man for whom praying is as natural as breathing. In the years I've known him, I've often asked myself how he does it. Now I've got an answer. Rick's amazing book 10 Prayers You Can't Live Without is full of bold insight and practical wisdom about the practice that is the very breath of our spiritual lives. The fact is the more I learn about Rick, the more I learn about prayer.

EDWARD GRINNAN, editor-in-chief of Guideposts and author of The Promise of Hope

Here are ten words to describe 10 Prayers You Can't Live Without: charming, inspiring, liberating, delightful, engrossing, moving, wise, healing, thoughtful, beautiful.

BOB HOSTETLER, author of How to Survive the End of the World

Prayer has long been, for me, more a source of worry than of comfort or strength. I don't pray as often as I'd like or as meaningfully. With insights and instruction woven almost invisibly through his little compendium of prayer stories, Rick Hamlin not only transformed my prayer habits but banished my insecurities about prayer. To try to pray is to pray, he reassures in the very first sentence. By the end of his book, under his gentle tutelage, I was trying all the time.

PATTY KIRK, author of The Gospel of Christmas and A Field Guide to God

Whether you're a newcomer to prayer or a lifelong prayer warrior encountering an occasional dry spell, 10 Prayers You Can't Live Without is a book you can't live without. From his own daily appointment with God on the subway to the experiences of people he knowsboth famous and unknownRick Hamlin has distilled guidelines to make every prayer a true conversation with God.

ELIZABETH SHERRILL, author of All the Way to Heaven

Copyright 2016

by Rick Hamlin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Hampton Roads Publishing, Inc. Reviewers may quote brief passages. Previously published in 2013 by Guideposts, New York as 10 Prayers You Can't Live Without, ISBN: 978-0-8249-328-3.

Cover design by Jim Warner

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

Charlottesville, VA 22906

Distributed by Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

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ISBN: 978-1-57174-741-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016930212

Printed in the United States of America

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For Sweetie

Bless this food to our use, us to your service, and bless the hands that prepared it.

Hi, God.

Be with those I love and the ones they love...

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...

I blew it, God.

Nooooooooo!

Alleluia.

Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner. Make haste to help me. Rescue me and save me. Let thy will be done in my life.

Thanks.

Yes, and...

TO TRY TO PRAY IS TO PRAY.

You can't fail at it. Nobody can. Open your heart, open your mouth, say something, say nothing. Shout if you must. Raise your hands, clasp them in your lap. Sing if you please. You can start with a Dear Lord and end with an Amen, or you can dive right in. You can close your eyes, get on your knees, use whatever language you like or no language at all. You can pray when you're walking, running, driving to work, setting the table for dinner, lying in bed before you turn the light out.

To try it is to do it. It's the only human endeavor I can think of where trying is doing. Reaching out is holding on. Joining in is letting go. Prayer is as natural as breathing. It's fun. It's a relief. It's comforting. It's a solace. You can tell yourself it's an obligation or that it's a terrific waste of time, but how often do you get to waste time with a purpose? If you're like me and think every minute of your day has to be accounted for, you really do need prayer. You'll run out of steam without it.

You can do it in private. You can do it with a friend at your kitchen table or in a church pew or with your family at dinner. You can do it in a windowless basement with a twelve-step group or out under the stars on a summer night. You can practice it all you like, but the practice itself is perfect. No need for a dress rehearsal. All your false attempts, your back-up-and-try-again effortsthey're it.

You will wonder if you're doing it right. You will want a little more guidance. You'll want to hear from others who take it seriously and learn from their example. Even the finest cooks look for inspiration in a new cookbook. But the masters will affirm that prayer is a school for amateurs because doing it from the heart is all that matters. That's the only expertise you need.

For thirty years I've made a conscious effort to work on my prayer life. I do it religiously, faithfully, absentmindedly. I often forget to pray, but I don't forget how. I don't think you really can. A need, a friend, a worry, a piece of bad news or a cause for celebration pulls me back. Returning is part of the process. So is waiting. Besides, being critical of your prayers defeats the whole purpose.

What has helped me? The Bible, especially the Psalms. A faith community that challenges me and keeps me on my toesSundays at church, I get recharged. Writers who know more than I do. Friends who give me working models of passionate faith. A family that prayed together and still does at every dinner. And for almost all those thirty years I've worked for a magazine where I've been expected to ask boldly, sometimes brazenly, about other people's prayer lives.

Do you ever pray? I ask, or When did you pray? or Did you pray about that? You'd be surprised by the answers and how committed people are to prayer. I remember the actress whom I had written off as a spiritual lightweight because she showed up in glossy fashion magazines. I pray all the time, she said without a pause. Or there was the newscaster who spoke profoundly and humbly of the people in disasters she prayed for, disasters she had to report on. Easy enough for you to say, I thought, until I discovered quite by accident how she followed up those prayers with substantial financial help. (No, I can't say who she was. Giving anonymously was a crucial part of her faith.) And there have been the countless subjects who have promised to put me in their prayers. One recently e-mailed me because she had a sense that I needed urgent prayer. (She was right.)