Book Review: The Hidden Life of Prayer by David MacIntyre

I love technology, but when it comes to reading books, you can call me old-fashioned.  There is something about holding a book in your hands, turning the pages, highlighting and making notes that just satisfies the ol’ codger in me.  Occasionally I will read a book on my iPad, but I really don’t enjoy it that much.

The Hidden Life of Prayer just may have changed that (at least temporarily).  I recently downloaded this free resource through my Olive Tree App, and to my surprise, I couldn’t stop swiping the pages, ahem… screen.  David MacIntyre, a Scottish preacher and educator, published the book in 1913 as a handbook for the secret life of devotion and prayer.

With a plethora of quotes, illustrations, and maxims, this book is surprisingly practical and thoroughly convicting.  Though it is coined as a classic, it reads much like a contemporary writing in its fluidity and poise.  MacIntyre hits on the secret to spiritual success in the very title of the book; the hidden life of prayer is indeed the key which opens the door to the secret place of God.  The book ironically exposes this hidden life and calls the church to fall back on her knees to an intimate, personal  life of communion.

This is a must-have for all believers…whether in your library or in your device.

Favorite Quotes from the book:

“The prayer of faith springs from a divinely-implanted disposition, there is nothing mysterious in the act of faith. It is simply an assurance which relies upon a sufficient warrant.” –David MacIntyre

“The realization of the Divine presence is the inflexible condition of a right engagement of spirit in the exercise of private prayer.” –David MacIntyre

“The soul which turns to God may clothe itself in quietness even in the crowded concourse or in the hurrying streets.” -David MacIntyre

“It will greatly help to calm the “contrary” mind if we open the sacred volume and read it as in the presence of God, until there shall come to us out from the printed page a word from the Eternal.” -David MacIntyre

“I shall not henceforward fear a prison as formerly, because I had so much of my Heavenly Father’s company as made it a palace to me.” –John Spilsbury of Bromgrove (confined in Worcester Jail for witnessing of Christ)

“Is it not a wonder that our words in prayer, which almost die in the coming out of our lips, should climb so well as to go into heaven?” –Robert Blair

“Prayer is the first thing wherewith a righteous life beginneth, and the last wherewith it doth end;” –Richard Hooker

“Prayer is the uplift of the earth- bound soul into the heaven, the entrance of the purified spirit into the holiest; the rending of the luminous veil that shuts in, as behind curtains, the glory of God. It is the vision of things unseen; the recognition of the mind of the Spirit; the effort to frame words which man may not utter.” – David MacIntyre

“Communion with God is the condition of spiritual growth. It is the soil in which all the graces of the divine life root themselves. Communion with God discovers the excellence of His character, and by beholding Him the soul is transformed. Holiness is conformity to Christ, and this is secured by a growing intimacy with Him.” -David MacIntyre