McKim points out that “The first act of Paul after he was converted was to pray! Richard Baxter referred to this incident and wrote the following: ‘Prayer is the breath of the new creature.’” McKim comments and asks, “our breath should be devoted to prayer! Do you regard prayer as essential to your life as is breathing?”

“We sometimes use the phrase ‘the breath of life,’” writes Donald K. McKim. “This usually refers to ongoing life marked by and expressed in the act of breathing. Without the breath of life, only death is possible. So too in the life of faith. Our faith ‘breathes’ through prayer.”[1] His book, Everyday Prayer with the Puritans, offers Christians expert assistance in breathing better.
McKim instructs that, “The goal…is to present Puritans’ understandings of prayer and show how these can nourish our Christian faith today.”[2] Each page presents a themed day with a featured Scripture opening a lesson that applies select Puritan writings to prayer, followed by his own closing reflection or prayer point. He quotes William Gurnall: “Prayer is the very breath of faith; stop a man’s breath, and where is he then?…But for faith to live, and this breath of prayer to be quite cut off, is impossible.” McKim adds:
“In…Scripture, we see prayer as the expression of faith, just as breath is the expression of life…When our prayer life wanes and our ‘breath’ becomes sporadic, our spiritual lives are in danger. Physically, we cannot live without breathing. Spiritually, we cannot live in relationship with God without praying…Prior to your prayer and at points throughout, breathe in and out, remembering that prayer is the breath of life.”[3]
The book provides useful ideas and phrases for one’s daily prayer life, much like Matthew Henry’s Method for Prayer, while also peppering in longer written prayers by Puritans on myriad subjects before each new section, reminiscent of those collected in The Valley of Vision. Yet McKim’s work is more like a daily devotional in format, similar to Spurgeon’s, Morning and Evening; and this makes it especially accessible.
The Motive for Spiritual Breathing
McKim points out that “The first act of Paul after he was converted was to pray! Richard Baxter referred to this incident and wrote the following: ‘Prayer is the breath of the new creature.’” McKim comments and asks, “our breath should be devoted to prayer! Do you regard prayer as essential to your life as is breathing?”[4] In addition, he asks: “What would your life be like if gratitude for prayer was your main motivating factor for living?”[5]
And prayer not only is to express gratitude to God, but also grief.  McKim notes that “God hears the voice of our tears.”[6] He also counsels, “What is the work of God in the midst of our afflictions? Said [Vincent] Alsop, ‘Prayer under affliction, witnesses that we believe our God to be good and gracious in it: that he can support us under it, can do us much good by it, and deliver us from it.’”[7] As Arthur Hildersham wrote about Psalm 34:15, “No tender mother is so wakeful, and apt to hear her infant when it cries; as the Lord is to hear his children whensoever they cry unto him …”[8] On Psalm 94:18, “Edward Reynolds wrote that we are eased when we realize ‘prayer lightens affliction where it does not remove it.’ … Our prayers help us through afflictions.”[9] Even when words escape us while our hearts beat for hope. John Bunyan wrote, “When thou prayest, rather let thy heart be without words, than thy words without a heart.” McKim agrees, “God knows your heart. God will hear your prayer, however it is expressed.”[10] William Gurnall, “wrote that in prayer, we have ‘the bosom of a gracious God’ to empty our ‘sorrowful heart into’ … Prayers offered in faith keep our heads ‘above the waves.’”[11]
For the day entitled, “Our Confused Prayers” based on Psalm 38:9-12, McKim encourages: “There are things deep within us, unformed in our minds, which are longings or sighs perhaps ‘too deep for words’ (Rom. 8:26). In the jumble of all these, God hears. Richard Sibbes wrote, ‘My groanings are not hid from thee [Ps. 38.9]; God can pick sense out of a confused prayer.’”[12] Including during difficult, perplexing providences.
John Flavel instructs how, “Prayer honors Providence, and Providence honors Prayer.” For “you have had the very Petitions you asked of him. Providences have borne the very signatures of your Prayers upon them.”[13] Similarly, Thomas Taylor wrote that “God hath decreed as well how to do things, as what he will do: and therefore God’s decree takes not away prayer, but establishes it;” McKim, agrees: “ … our prayers are important because they are used by God to carry out the divine purposes. Prayer is part of the process of God’s fulfilling God’s will.”[14] What’s more, Anthony Burgess wrote, whoever “lives without prayer lives as if there were no God as if all things came by a natural necessity or uncertain chance, and not from a wise God.”[15] This is especially helpful when waiting on God’s timing.
On Psalm 40:11-17, McKim counsels, “Our trust is that God will answer our prayers in God’s time, which will be the best time. We know this, but we often have to remind ourselves of this.”[16] Thomas Watson reasons, “A friend may receive our letter, though he doth not presently send us an answer of it. … God may delay prayer, and yet not deny.”[17]  Further, citing Malachi 3:16-18, Paul Baynes wrote that “God … bottles up our tears, files up our prayers, putting them on record before him.”[18] On Psalm 56:8, McKim writes, “Our prayers are not launched into empty space. They are heard and stand before God, who will answer in God’s time.”[19]
Yet there is a place for beseeching immediate answer. On Psalm 50:12-15, “The psalmist recorded a key text about God and prayer when God said, ‘Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me’ (Ps. 50:15) … David Dickson said, ‘What more absolute promise can be made to a believing supplicant?’ … God’s promises are reliable. God says, ‘Call on me!’”[20]
Further, “prayers are an expression of faith.”[21] It is how we reach out and receive. John Downame wrote, “ … God hath appointed prayer as the hand of the soul, to be thrust into his rich Treasury of all grace and goodness for a continual supply …”[22] McKim advises, “God invites our prayers so that we can unburden ourselves of thinking we can do it all or solve all problems … John Owen wrote that ‘if we would talk less, and pray more about them, things would be better than they are in the world; at least we should be better enabled to bear them and undergo our portion in them with the more satisfaction.’”[23]
The opposite also is true; on Psalm 55:22, McKim writes, “worry is like a rocking chair—you go back and forth and never get anywhere! … The antidote for worry is prayer,”[24] and “Without prayer, our lives lose their way … Prayer sweetens the mercy!”[25] Indeed, as Thomas Watson explains, “Prayer does to the heart, as Christ did to the sea … Prayer makes a gracious calm in the soul …”[26]
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When we feel weak and frustrated by how limited we are, we can turn to him and find rest, knowing he has taken care of all we need for salvation in the gospel. We don’t need to work without ceasing to prove our worth to our Father because Christ has already accomplished all we need for salvation. We can now serve God out of a place of rest and gratitude.

I collapsed into the wingback chair. A long walk on the trail pushing the stroller over bumps and ruts in the summer heat and humidity had exhausted my body. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and begged for water. I propped my feet up and gulped down a glass of water and chewed into an energy bar to restore my body.
My eyes flitted over all the unfinished work surrounding me. The laundry still needed to be folded, the office still needed to be organized from cleaning out the desk, the kitchen floor still needed sweeping from supper, and the bathroom still needed renovating.
On days like this, I long for eternal strength. I wish I never became weak or faint. I wish I could stay up into the late hours of the night finishing all these projects without taking a break. Sometimes I even try to push through, knowing I’ll pay for it that night as I try to fall asleep with a racing mind and throbbing feet.
I not only do this in physical exhaustion but mental and emotional exhaustion. When I feel as if my mind is going to break from helping one more person, comforting one more screaming child, or volunteering for one more activity, I put my head down and plow forward anyway, taking on even more tasks.
Yet as humans, we will never know what it’s like to run without tiring, to exercise without sore muscles, to work at a desk all day and not have our minds turn to mush, or to care for every single hurting person we encounter. Though we may resist and pump more caffeine into our veins, eventually our bodies will give out. As mothers, we know how lack of sleep crumples us in every way and what happens when we spend an entire meal running from child to child serving food without ever sitting down to eat ourselves.
Can you relate to this constant drive toward exhaustion? This regular imaginary play that we can be eternal like God? Are you tired of it—but likewise feel as if you can’t stop? We must relinquish such travail and toil and rest in God’s eternality—though first, we should understand where this drive stems from.
The Culture of Efficiency
What leads to this constant striving to be eternal? Perhaps our modern culture plays a part.
Our current North American culture upholds and honors that which is efficient and produces the most content or product. If we have nothing to show for our work at the end of the day, was it truly worth it? If we didn’t maximize production and speed on every task, did we truly do our best? As AI continues to thrive, we may begin to wonder: if I can’t be eternal like God, I might get replaced by a machine.
Meanwhile, much of our meaningful work is anything but efficient. Relationships, parenthood, marriage, art, education, and pastoral care (to name just a few) are utterly inefficient when done well. It’s not productive to spend eighteen years producing a well-equipped, godly human being. Am I truly maximizing my time by spending several hours working on a painting only my husband and children will see? Perhaps you could have written a month’s worth of sermons this week if that family didn’t have an unexpected crisis.
Often we have less to show for ourselves at the end of the day, and to our world that is humiliating. But God calls us to a much humbler way of life: rest and trust in his eternality, accepting the good limits he placed on us.
God Is Eternal and We are Not
God is eternal. Dwell on that for a moment.
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Written by Joseph A. Kohm Jr. |
Friday, September 1, 2023
Lewis points out that in previous ages, wisdom and virtue led to conforming the soul to reality in pursuit of becoming truly human. Now, the conditioners discard humanity by subduing “reality to the wishes of men” (77). Lewis argues that reality is subdued by replacing conformity with technological solutions, which may include rewiring the circuitry of our cells, implanting chips in our brains, or providing teenagers with puberty blockers.

In May 2023, Elon Musk’s company Neuralink received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials on humans. Neuralink develops brain-computer interface technology where an implant is placed onto the surface of the brain, facilitating a connection between the subject’s electrical brain activity and electronic devices.
The company had previously been using animals in trials, and several years ago they released a short video of a monkey, who had Neuralink’s technology implanted in his brain, controlling the cursors and paddles in video games merely by thinking of doing it.
In February 1943, C. S. Lewis gave a series of lectures on education, which were published as The Abolition of Man. When they were delivered over three successive nights 80 years ago for the University of Durham, there was no way he was thinking of monkeys playing video games. However, in his earlier work That Hideous Strength, he depicted a world in which such absurdities could have been imagined.
In a 1955 letter to his American friend Mary Willis Shelburne, Lewis bemoaned that The Abolition of Man, though it was one of his favorite books, had been “almost totally ignored by the public.” We’d do well not to ignore it today.
The Abolition of Man is a powerful work for our day because, in many ways, Lewis predicted the future. He foresaw the rise of trends we’re currently experiencing: ethical emotivism, the sometimes unquestioned authority of science, and the increasing use of technology by states to control their populations.
Subjective Poison
In the first lecture, “Men Without Chests,” Lewis deconstructs an educational model subtly imposed on children via a language arts textbook, which he renames to protect the authors. The unstated worldview behind The Green Book serves to inoculate young minds against objective values by identifying all values with feelings and emotions. For example, awe in response to a waterfall is simply a reflection of the person’s attitude, not the sublimity of the waterfall itself. 
Instead, Lewis argues that educators must teach students to detect and respond appropriately to objective reality. Teachers must plant “just sentiments” in the fertile minds of their students (14).
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