As part of the TOS Review Crew, I have been given an opportunity to review the book, The Pray-ers / Book 1 Troubles by Mark S. MIrza, from CTM Publishing Atlanta. 

 

The Pray-ers / Book 1 Troubles by Mark S. MIrza is an engaging book from CTM Publishing Atlanta that covers the topic of the importance of prayer through using a novel approach. And by novel, I actually mean a novel. The book reminds me a bit of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters in that it pulls back the curtain on Spiritual Warfare through the fictional eyes of different “demons”. Then, it switches to the lives of men, and as they have spiritual growth and victories, the scenes cut to what is happening in the spiritual world.

While this book is purely fiction and does not try to pretend that these conversations among the demonic forces or angelic ones are biblical, they do try to remain consistent to the way they would speak if they spoke and thought the way that humans do.

One thing I liked about this book is that one of the ways that is focused on for one mentor teaching prayer to another is to pray through the scriptures. This is a solid biblical principle that I was glad to see shared. It also focuses on our own need to repent and confess of our sins, in order that we may have a clean heart before the Lord when we go in prayer. I appreciated those parts very much.  I liked also that many of his suggestions for a strong prayer life also apply and could be easily taught and shared with my children. I also like how he uses already existing resources (Wesley Family Prayers Book)  to teach biblical principles from one person to another.

Some of the difficulty I had in the book was the vast number of names and characters that were used at the outset.The plot of this book spans 3 different times, The current era, the 19th century, and the first century. This accounts for the numerous characters, which thankfully, the author chose to include in a helpful table in the back. It defined each character and gave context for the story.  I felt disconnected from the book because I had to think just a little too hard to keep it all straight. I do not enjoy having to stop reading a plotline to turn to the back of the book to figure out who a character is.  I also felt it was somewhat repetitive, particularly in the areas of how the demons treated one another. I was bored with that aspect of the story line, because unlike other works like this, it was not particularly clever or unique, so stating it more often did not bring more to the plot. I found myself skimming those parts.
This book is full of wisdom and terrific resources to help one grow in the areas of faithfulness to prayer and spiritual warfare.  However, I will not necessarily have any of my children read this book. This book includes some topics that I do not think are appropriate for them at such young ages, such as abortion, marital unfaithfuness, etc. This book does, however, impress upon me the importance of giving more direct instruction regarding prayer and bible study when teaching my own children, and it inspired me to be a more faithful and effective prey-er as well.

 

 

 

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