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The Love Exchange: An Adventure in Prayer
Do you have six minutes a day to spare? Six short minutes each day-that doesn't sound like much time, does it? But it is all the commitment you need to start down the path to a richer spiritual life. 'The Love Exchange' is a simple, biblically based prayer method that touches the deepest need of the human to love and be loved. In this book, Margaret Therkelsen challenges you to spend three minutes a day expressing love to God, then another three minutes acknowledging God's love for you. Building intimacy with God is something anyone can do. By sharing her own journey, Therkelsen invites you to take part in the unique prayer program that she follows. This book provides specific instruction on how you can focus your prayers and life so as to further a closeness with God. Writes Therkelsen, As this Love Exchange deepens, God can have more of you than he has ever had, and your life will be hidden in him, freely alive and transformed in his living presence.
160 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1990
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July 8, 2014
Margaret Therkelsen was an unknown to me and I have read far too many books on prayer. I bought this book at a library book sale solely because it was published by Wipf & Stock. W&S has a history of rescuing great, out-of-print books from oblivion. PLus it only cost me about sixty-five cents.
The thing about books on prayer is that sometimes the author is too deeply spiritual for a worldly guy like me to feel like I can get much practical use out of it. Other times, prayer is de-mystified and treated like a formula, commended to a reader as 'easy.' My first impression of Therkelsen was that she was of the overly spiritual variety. On the first page of chapter one, she shares what happened to her one day as she practiced her regular hour long prayer time. I can't sit still to watch TV for an hour!
However as I read and tried to practice her "method," I appreciated how it forced me to express my love for God, and to take time to receive love from Him. She gives steps and has a method, but this isn't formulaic. This is about making space for mutual sharing of love between God and me. This is a practical guide to contemplative prayer as part of devotional practice (she suggests doing this after your daily scripture reading). I particularly found a slow meditative (and personalized) reading of John 3:16 as suggested by a exercise at the end of chapter one to be quite meaningful. Great stuff.
On a aesthetic note, there is a bit of editorial awkwardness. A later chapter particularly refers back to the contents of chapter two, when chapter three is in mind. I do not know if this because this edition is a facsimile of the Baker edition and therefore not copy edited correctly, or if the original order of chapters changed.
The thing about books on prayer is that sometimes the author is too deeply spiritual for a worldly guy like me to feel like I can get much practical use out of it. Other times, prayer is de-mystified and treated like a formula, commended to a reader as 'easy.' My first impression of Therkelsen was that she was of the overly spiritual variety. On the first page of chapter one, she shares what happened to her one day as she practiced her regular hour long prayer time. I can't sit still to watch TV for an hour!
However as I read and tried to practice her "method," I appreciated how it forced me to express my love for God, and to take time to receive love from Him. She gives steps and has a method, but this isn't formulaic. This is about making space for mutual sharing of love between God and me. This is a practical guide to contemplative prayer as part of devotional practice (she suggests doing this after your daily scripture reading). I particularly found a slow meditative (and personalized) reading of John 3:16 as suggested by a exercise at the end of chapter one to be quite meaningful. Great stuff.
On a aesthetic note, there is a bit of editorial awkwardness. A later chapter particularly refers back to the contents of chapter two, when chapter three is in mind. I do not know if this because this edition is a facsimile of the Baker edition and therefore not copy edited correctly, or if the original order of chapters changed.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review