The Circle Maker

Towards the end of 2011 I began thinking about 2012 and the adjustments I need to make.  As I spent time thinking and praying, the word “intentional” kept popping in my mind.  The more I thought about it two areas of my life emerged and it became obvious to me that these were areas I needed to focus on.  One of them happened to be PRAYER.  I stink at prayer!

Enter The Circle Maker.

I made a decision to read one chapter of The Circle Maker everyday beginning on January 1st.  This proved to be more difficult than I anticipated because of how much I loved the book.  Mark Batterson has truly written a great book.  The following are my thoughts regarding it.

• For starters, the chapters are short!  I can’t stand when authors drag out an idea and make chapters longer than they need to be.
• The book is highly tweetable!  Mark uses tons of bite sized truth.  Here’s a few from the opening chapters:
• Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers.
• The greatest moments in life are the miraculous moments where human impotence and divine omnipotence intersect.
• The transcript of your prayers becomes the script of your life.
• Most of us don’t get what we want simply because we don’t know what we want.
• If we do what they did in the Bible, we might experience what they experienced.
• Mark does a great job of adding his quirky, witty, scientific thoughts and insights into many of the miracles in the Bible that we have grown up with.
• The book is also infused with many stories regarding National Community Church and the many things they have seen God do.
• However, one thing that got old was the retelling/referencing of many of the same stories throughout the book.  At times it was a bit like groundhog day.

Having said all that, I highly recommend the book.  I enjoyed it and was challenged by it so much that we, as a church, are going to be doing a series built off of it in the near future!