Tim Keller didn’t write a book on prayer because he felt like an expert. By his own admission, he embarked on his yearslong study out of a sense of deficiency and necessity. He opens the first chapter by saying,

In the second half of my adult life, I discovered prayer. . . . It became clear to me that I was barely scratching the surface of what the Bible commanded and promised regarding prayer. (9)

When I first read those lines as a recent seminary graduate, I could hardly believe them. Tim Keller, a spiritual giant, preaching to thousands, publishing books, and yet barely scratching the surface?

He ties his prayer-life-changing discovery to his diagnosis of thyroid cancer in 2002. When the news came, he was in his early fifties and nearly thirty years into pastoral ministry. He had been pastoring Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City for more than a decade. And then cancer did what adversity often does: it sparked something of a revival in his heart, an awakened sense of both his spiritual neediness and the powerful privilege we enjoy on our knees.

His prayer crisis sent him on a quest deep below the surface to experience the awe and intimacy that God promises to those who pray. Twelve years later, he sketched out a map, in fifteen chapters, of all he’d tasted and seen for those who want to go deeper themselves.

Emboldening Humility

Part of the power of the book is in its endearing humility. At one level, it really is an extended confession of how (unconsciously) inadequate his prayer life had once been. In an interview after the book released, he shared,

My wife and I would never want to go back to the kind of prayer life or spiritual life we had before the cancer. I really thought that I had a good prayer life. And when I broke through into another dimension, I realized that, frankly, my prayer life wasn’t very good.

His own personal humbling, and the subsequent years of concerted effort to grow, make the book both convicting and emboldening. Convicting, because we may find ourselves receiving the same diagnosis he received: frankly, our prayer lives aren’t very good. Emboldening, though, because he makes a vibrant prayer life feel wonderfully possible again. He’s relentlessly realistic about the difficulties of genuine prayer, but he also models grace-filled, joy-hungry perseverance in prayer.

“I can think of nothing great that is also easy,” he writes. “Prayer must be, then, one of the hardest things in the world” (24). He’s after a deeper experience in prayer that he himself had neglected and forfeited over many years. In the first pages, he tells us what he wants the reader to feel when we pray:

This book will show that prayer is both conversation and encounter with God. . . . We must know the awe of praising his glory, the intimacy of finding his grace, and the struggle of asking his help, all of which can lead us to know the spiritual reality of his presence. Prayer, then, is both awe and intimacy, struggle and reality. (5)

This quest sent him deep into church history, where he knelt beside spiritual forefathers like Augustine, Luther, and Calvin (along with Owen, Edwards, Lewis, Lloyd-Jones, Packer, and more). He uncovers a letter Augustine wrote to a woman who feared she was failing in prayer. He comes alongside Luther as he counsels a barber broken by sin and tragedy. He sits in on Calvin’s “master class” on his five rules for prayer. He listens to the similar and distinct ways all three pastors prayed the Lord’s Prayer. All of this makes the book a treasury of help from ancient prayer closets.

Praying Well Begins with Listening

For Keller, perhaps the single most important key to prayer is its marriage to the word of God. So many of the dangers of prayer are curbed (or eliminated altogether), and so many of the rewards are unlocked and unleashed, when we pray over and through and from what God has said.

Your prayer must be firmly connected to and grounded in your reading of the Word. This wedding of Bible and prayer anchors your life down in the real God. (56)

Without immersion in God’s words, our prayers may not be merely limited and shallow but also untethered from reality. (62)

Keller doesn’t set the Bible aside to try and have a better prayer life, as if an overemphasis on Scripture somehow undermines our prayers. No, the greater danger is that we can actually lose the true God in our rhythms of prayer. “If left to themselves our hearts will tend to create a God who doesn’t exist,” he warns. “Without prayer that answers the God of the Bible, we will only be talking to ourselves” (62).

After establishing the importance of Scripture early in the book, he circles back and does a whole chapter on how the practice of meditation serves prayer, letting John Owen teach us how to work the truth out with our minds and then work it in to our hearts.

Prayer Closets for Beginners

Keller was a theologian and an apologist, but he was just as much a pastor. And because he was a pastor of people who really struggled to pray, he wasn’t content to merely share ideas and principles. He wanted to offer real practical help on the how.

I wrote this book because, though many great books on prayer have been written, most either go into the theology of prayer, or they go into the practice of prayer, or they troubleshoot. I didn’t have one book I could give people that basically covered all the bases: a biblical view of prayer, the theology of prayer, and some methods of prayer. I didn’t have a good first book to give somebody. (“Prayers That Don’t Work”)

So, after developing a theology of prayer in Scripture and exploring what history teaches us about prayer, he offers ways to actually practice and experience what he’s describing.

For instance, he devotes a chapter to praying the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13). That may sound rather straightforward and elementary at first (you may have started praying that prayer even before you were in first grade), but Keller follows Luther in learning to use the prayer less for its exact words and more as a pattern to follow and expand in our own words (93–94). He found that this practice limits the distracting thoughts that inevitably come when we pray. It also teaches us to reach beyond the immediate needs or burdens that so often dictate where we focus in prayer.

Later in the book, he shares how regularly praying the Psalms transforms a prayer life.

Immersing ourselves in the Psalms and turning them into prayers teaches our hearts the “grammar” of prayer and gives us the most formative instruction in how to pray in accord with God’s character and will. (255)

He shares that he would read psalms in the morning and evening and then pray, sometimes praying the actual words of the psalm and other times praying in his own words. Following the The Book of Common Prayer schedule, he would work through all 150 psalms each month. Over time, his prayers (and soul) were slowly and deeply conformed to “the Bible’s prayer book.”

Along with the Lord’s Prayer and the Psalms, he collects and shares a number of other extremely practical paradigms and guides for daily prayer, ranging from short and simple models to longer and more involved ones.

Entering the Happiness of God

Having read a number of Keller’s books, perhaps the most surprising character in this particular book was joy. In fact, rereading the book made me wonder if his battle with cancer freshly awakened him not only to prayer, but also to the prominent place of happiness in the Christian life. Very early, he charts the course:

The Westminster Shorter Catechism tells us that our purpose is to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.” In this famous sentence we see reflected both kingdom-prayer and communion-prayer. Those two things — glorifying God and enjoying God — do not always coincide in this life, but in the end they must be the same thing. We may pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, but if we don’t enjoy God supremely with all our being, we are not truly honoring him as Lord. (4)

For as sweet as the camaraderie was between Tim Keller and John Piper over the years, I don’t think I’ve ever heard them sing with such harmony. According to Keller, the prayers “Hallowed be your name” and “O God, my soul thirsts for you” are not unrelated or at odds, but at their deepest root, the same.

And why would our enjoying God glorify him? Because he is Happiness — Father, Son, and Spirit infinitely and eternally delighting in one another. “We can see why a triune God would call us to converse with him, to know and relate to him. It is because he wants to share the joy he has. Prayer is our way of entering into the happiness of God himself” (68). From his knees, Keller found the only thing big enough, full enough, and intense enough to satisfy the human soul: joy in the happy God.

And now that joy is full. On May 19, 2023, Tim Keller went from prayer to sight. In the sovereign hands of a loving Father, cancer had given him prayer, and now cancer has given him Christ. He has truly entered the happiness of God. Oh, to read a sixteenth chapter from heaven.

Slow to chide, and swift to bless.

With such a memorable tribute to our heavenly Father, pastor and poet Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847) ends the second stanza of his hymn “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven.” Lyte was born to a derelict father, who sent him off to boarding school, nearly abandoned him, and signed infrequent letters “Uncle” instead of “Father.” In time, young Henry was taken in at holidays by the school’s headmaster as a kind of adopted son.

So Lyte knew personally the pains of a negligent father. Yet he came to find healing in a heavenly Father. “I have called Thee Abba Father,” he writes in the climactic verse of “Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken.” And then again in “Praise, My Soul,”

Fatherlike he tends and spares us;well our feeble frame he knows.In his hand he gently bears us,rescues us from all our foes.

The functionally orphaned poet came to know deeply the fatherhood of God for having had such an awful earthly one — and in seeing what he saw, he teaches us a vital aspect of all healthy fatherhood.

One Thousand Versus Four

“Slow to chide, and swift to bless” is a fitting tribute to our heavenly Father who revealed himself to Moses, and across time, culminating in Christ, as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin . . .” (Exodus 34:6–7). In showing us his glory, he leads with grace and mercy.

“In showing us his glory, our heavenly Father leads with grace and mercy.”

Notice, in his swiftness to bless his people, our heavenly Father is not absent of chiding, but slow to it: “. . . who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:7). Our God is merciful and gracious, and no pushover. He does indeed chide. When he does, however, observe the ratio with his blessing: he chides “to the third and the fourth generation” but blesses with “steadfast love for thousands.” And even then, because we’re sinners, his chiding is not at odds with his blessing, but a vital aspect of it.

Psalm 103 echoes the great revelation to Moses and adds a connection to fatherhood:

The Lord is merciful and gracious,     slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.He will not always chide,     nor will he keep his anger forever. . . .As a father shows compassion to his children,     so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. (Psalm 103:8–10, 13)

Though he will chide, and though we feel the sting, his final word to his children is always blessing and favor and joy:

His anger is but for a moment,     and his favor is for a lifetime.Weeping may tarry for the night,     but joy comes with the morning. (Psalm 30:5)

Our Father and We Fathers

What might this remarkable peek into the heart of our heavenly Father — slow to chide, swift to bless — mean for how we raise, discipline, and delight in our own children?

Such a vision of our Father’s glory not only runs across Scripture from beginning to end but also informs human fatherhood. As earthly fathers, we take our cues from the heavenly Father (Ephesians 3:14). In Christ, we too, though typically formed and conditioned in opposite ways, want to become increasingly “slow to chide, and swift to bless.” This kind of posture fits with, and is filled out, by Paul’s remarkable one-verse vision of parenting, and fatherhood in particular, in Ephesians 6:4:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Clearly what the apostle says here is relevant for mothers too, and yet he addresses fathers specifically — not simply as head of the household, but also as the one with the particular responsibility for educating the children in preparation for sending them out into the world.

Given Authority to Bless

The most disciplinarian dads among us will do well to observe that Paul doesn’t summarize the task as, “Make sure to establish and exercise authority over your children.” Rather, he assumes fatherly authority. Given the authority (and power) that we already have, as dads, by ordinance of God, he cautions us to exercise it with care, being mindful not to harm our children with our greater abilities, but instead to help them.

“Do not provoke your children to anger.” For our part, we are not to give our children any just reason to be angry or discouraged. We should not sin against them, but treat them with full Christian virtue — with as much kindness and respect as we treat fellow adults in our lives, whether at work, or at church, or in the neighborhood. That God has given children to us, and instructed them to obey us, is patently no excuse for sinning against them. Rather, it is all the more reason to make every effort, with God’s help, to treat our children with the utmost Christian kindness, and respect, and love.

“Our children should be the ones we treat best of all people, not worst.”

Given their vulnerability as children, and our calling as their parents, they should be the ones we treat best of all people, not worst. Our adult sins have far greater repercussions than the missteps of our children.

Gentle, Patient Teachers

So, Paul assumes fatherly authority, and then exhorts us to wield it for the benefit, not detriment, of our children. The question is not whether fathers will provoke or drive their children; we will. With our presence or absence, with our holiness or sin, we inevitably will turn and shape our children in some direction. The question is whether we will drive them to anger or provoke them to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24).

What, then, might we avoid and pray against in ourselves? Commentator Andrew Lincoln writes that the negative charge in Ephesians 6:4 involves “avoiding attitudes, words, and actions which would drive a child to angry exasperation or resentment and thus rules out excessively severe discipline, unreasonably harsh demands, abuse of authority, arbitrariness, unfairness, constant nagging and condemnation, subjecting a child to humiliation, and all forms of gross insensitivity to a child’s needs and sensibilities” (Ephesians, 406). With a few moments pondering, we all might make similar lists. And, remembering Lyte, we might also rule out neglect, which is a great temptation in times of multiplied distractions and screens.

In other words, fathers are to have their children in submission with all dignity, as Paul requires of elders in 1 Timothy 3:4. We all know there are dishonorable, undignified ways to have children in submission, as well as honorable ones. “In contrast to the norms of the day,” writes P.T. O’Brien,

Paul wants Christian fathers to be gentle, patient educators of their children, whose chief ‘weapon’ is Christian instruction focused on loyalty to Christ as Lord. Christian fathers were to be different from those of their surrounding society. (447)

Countercultural parenting in the first century may have meant, especially, swiftness to bless. Today it might also require the countercultural intentionality and deliberateness that is a readiness to genuinely chide, even as we’re slow to it, and never less than loving in it.

Speed Limits of Fatherhood

In cultivating such holy slowness to chide, we parents, and fathers especially, remember not only that we are bigger than our kids physically, but also that we should be bigger people than our children — that is, in the inner man. As adults, and fathers, we’re called to be the mature ones, the magnanimous ones, the patient ones. Our physical size and strength distinguish us from our children. So should our emotional maturity.

This might lead us to keep in mind, for example, that voice volume is not a clear differentiator between adults and children. Raising our voice is no special parental ability. However, patience should be. And wisdom. Practicing Christian patience as a parent does not mean failing to discipline our children, but it does help us to be slower to chide than we might be naturally, and to exercise wisdom, in partnership with our wife, in applying the rod.

As fathers who take our cues from the heavenly Father, we are encouraged, in the words of Henry Francis Lyte, to be swift to bless: quick to commend our children when they obey cheerfully, quick to give them our attention, quick to express praise and love and delight, quick to teach them ahead of time, knowing that the lion’s share of fatherly discipline is pro-active instruction and anticipating their needs and weaknesses. And then we must correct and reprove. Indeed we will chide. And our children will be all the better for it when we, like our heavenly Father, have been swift to bless.

We live in an era when it can be fashionable to be unsure what a man or woman is. It depends, the theory goes, on how you identify.

But theologians talk about something called common grace. Because God created humans in his image, we possess some innate knowledge of who we are. The Bible says, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).

Throughout history and across cultures, great similarities exist in the characteristics of men (no less than in women). Certainly in cultures influenced by Christianity, like North America, good men are recognized by qualities like bravery, self-control, kindness, ambition, responsibility, honesty, selflessness, industriousness, humility, generosity, and skillfulness. Traditionally, women sought such men for husbands. Boys looked up to such men as models.

In today’s climate of male-and-female confusion, how can we raise sons into men who escape becoming fragile or soft or lazy or endlessly distracted? While parents cannot guarantee the character of their children, there are some ways to encourage positive outcomes and discourage negative ones.

My wife and I raised two sons (now 40 and 34). The following contains a dozen considerations from my experience raising boys to men.

1. Get right with God.

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalm 127:3). A son is a gift you can nurture effectively only with divine aid. Do you know this Lord yourself? Are you trusting and growing in Christ? The best fathers know the guidance and discipline of the heavenly Father in their own lives (Hebrews 12:5–11). They learn to transfer those same dynamics in gracious ways toward their sons.

2. Look in the mirror.

What kind of man are you? Sometimes sterling men arise from perverse home settings, but it is folly to sin while hoping for grace to abound (Romans 6:1–2). If you are bitter, critical, and angry, do not be surprised if a son mimics your bad habits. Fathers need to be humble enough to accept correction (from Scripture, from their wife, from a friend or pastor or even a child) and dedicate themselves to self-improvement. Many a son has learned self-righteousness from a hard-hearted, self-important dad. Teachable dads often cultivate teachable kids.

3. Love your wife.

She is your helper and sometimes mentor in the childrearing process. God says to love her as Christ loved the church and as you love yourself (Ephesians 5:25, 32). Sons (and daughters!) need to see and deeply sense a strong and steady affection from their dad for their mom. The security of marital ardor creates a forcefield that fortifies (and in the long run can help purify) the souls of sons. They rest in the joyful overflow. They observe how to express the love and respect they feel, but that their sinful souls can tempt them to neglect or withhold (boys can be real pills toward mom).

“Sons (and daughters!) need to see and deeply sense a strong and steady affection from their dad for their mom.”

I remember hugging my wife one evening, a rug rat at our feet. He tugged on my jeans at the knee to be picked up. I did so and the hug became three-way. Then my son announced, “Kiss fight!” and began pecking left and right. How could we not join in? Boys can turn anything into a war. It still makes me laugh to think about.

4. Check your loves.

The pastor who baptized both my sons joined with us at a church retreat one summer. He bought me a bait bucket to encourage me to fish with my sons. Then he said to me, “Bob, your sons will grow up to love what you love.” It was friendly counsel from a man with a bit more experience with his own sons. It was priceless guidance. If I love myself more than God, my wife, and my children, if I neglect my sons as I chase career glory or disappear on weekends playing golf and drinking beers with buddies, I shouldn’t be surprised if my sons end up chasing the twisted and unenviable life.

5. Learn from your via negativa.

A via negativa is a wrong path, a negative example. Experts know that bad parenting patterns often get handed down and replicated. If your dad beat you, you will be inclined to beat your kids. A man who is right with God and his wife (see the first and third points above) can break this cycle. Be alert to the danger of replicating nasty patterns under which you suffered. Pray and strategize so you can turn the dark paths you knew into sunlit trails for sons.

6. Set aside more time as boys get older.

I expected that babies and toddlers would take a lot of time, and I was right. In our case, my wife quit her job as a nurse to be with the kids at home; she bore the brunt of childcare. But over the years, she went back to work, and I tried to spend as much time as I could with our sons.

I was not prepared to discover that the older kids get, the more they need you around. And you may be surprised to find they want you there! This trend may slack off some during the teen years, but not necessarily. Creative parents may find ways to make common cause with sons so they are in proximity without smothering them. One of my sons had baseball talents. This drew me into ten years of coaching, including some time-intensive seasons. He took far less time as a toddler! But the rewards for our relationship — his character development and enduring family memories — were simply incalculable.

7. Read to and worship with your kids.

Remember, kids will love what you love. If you love Scripture and times of prayer and singing hymns, your kids will learn and feel that. If your “Bible time” (or “Bible tible,” as it came to be called in our home) is daily, not sporadic and haphazard, you can cover a lot in just ten or fifteen minutes each morning or evening over the course of weeks and months.

We ended up combining this with reading (out loud) classics like C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia or Ralph Moody’s epic Little Britches. I also dug up old poems like “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “Casey at the Bat,” and many others. Combine this with discussion that runs where kids lead it, along with time for prayer, and you have ingredients for some soul-searching exchanges.

8. Teach them to work by working alongside.

Households survive on chores getting done, whether inside or outside. You can always do them faster without the “help” of young kids. But slow down and make them part of the crew. Teach them how to crack an egg if you are baking or turn a screwdriver if you are putting up a board fence. Get sweaty splitting and stacking firewood. Rake the fall leaves and ambush each other in the leaf piles. (We had a German shepherd who would bury himself in the leaves and wait for someone to jump on him. That’s the spirit!)

“One of the most valuable gifts a father can give a son is a robust work ethic.”

One of the most valuable gifts a father can give a son is a robust work ethic. Figure out what you can do together, and then create space for it to happen. Sons who know how to work with confidence, skill, and maximum effort are not apt to fail when they are out on their own.

9. Model Christian consumption of culture.

Mass and social media can dominate our consciousness. Christian husbands and wives should not be cyber-junkies or television addicts. Following Jesus calls for other emphases and pursuits. As they limit themselves, they have moral authority to help their children set their own limits — like no devices after a certain time in the evening, or time limits for online gaming. The easiest way to address bad habits is to prevent their onset. Help sons find richer, more productive horizons than excess Internet use. (Internet employment or online research for academic assignments, of course, is something different.)

10. Keep it physical.

Fathers, talk to your sons even while they are in the womb. They will know your voice when they emerge. Then hug and snuggle them. Hold them when you read to them and pray for them and sit with them in church. Carry them on your shoulders, roughhouse on the living-room carpet (“rassling,” I called it). Let them carry the feel of one last hug into their night’s sleep. Dads and sons alike need this expression and reinforcement of the love God has granted.

11. Teach them successful risk-taking.

We want our kids to be safe, but not at the cost of cowardice. You want sons to be risk-savvy, not risk-averse. Help them learn to swim as they overcome their (well-advised) fear of drowning. At appropriate ages, teach them to climb rocks, walk across a log spanning a ditch, befriend the neighbor’s barking dog, scale a fire tower, carry a box heavier than they thought they could, and sustain some scratches as they help clear land, prune trees, or repair the deck.

Boys that don’t learn bravery descend to knavery. Life is full of danger, and it can’t all be avoided. Figure out risks you can manage and surmount them as father and son. This parallels working side by side with them. Some tasks, like cleaning out gutters, can be two-men operations. Let your 12-year-old son shoulder the responsibility of steadying the ladder — or even climbing aloft if he’s ready (monitor closely, of course).

12. Show them how to care for others.

All the attention to sons prescribed above could leave the impression that to raise boys, you need to dote on and spoil them. Nope. If your home and marriage are trending Christ-centered (we never fully arrive in this life), sons will learn that God is the center of our lives, not us, and our daily prayer is for his kingdom to come and his will to be done. This also means we love and care for neighbors near and far. It means that part of our family income goes to the church, our family table is open to those God brings into our lives to be cared for, and we plan our futures with God’s call and will at the forefront of our thinking.

The list above is representative, not comprehensive. But with prayer, a lot of effort, perceived self-sacrifice (it’s actually a privilege), and God’s grace, parents and especially dads can increase the odds that the boys they rear will rise above the indolence, insecurity, and fear that studies say bedevil too many younger males at present.